Catholic Preaching

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

October 16, 2022

Ex 17:8-13, Ps 121, 2 Tim 3:14-4:2; Lk 18:1-8

 

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

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The following text guided the homily: 

* In today’s first reading, we have a pivotal scene from the journey of the Israelites across the desert. It happened at Rephidim, where Moses at God’s instruction had struck a rock and allowed it to gush forth water for the people to drink. A brand new well in the middle of the desert would obviously attract others who might see in the well not just the means to quench their thirst but a source of power and profit. And so unsurprisingly the fearsome Amalekites showed up. God told the Israelites not to be afraid and instructed Moses to climb a nearby mountain with the staff of God in his hand and allow Joshua and the Israelites to battle against Amalek and his soldiers. We see what happened during the fight. Whenever Moses raised his hands raised in prayer, the Israelites dominated. Whenever his hands grew tired and fell, the Israelites were pummeled. Hence Moses’ two assistants, his brother Aaron and Hur, had him sit on a rock as they from behind kept his hands raised in prayer until sunset. With the hands raised as an external sign of Moses’ constant prayer, Joshua and the Israelites ended up mowing down the Amalekites. Through this unforgettable lesson, God was teaching his people about the importance of praying always in order to persevere and be victorious in the battles of life, the battles all of us face, individually and as the people of God.

* Jesus underlines this message in the Gospel with the Parable of the Persistent Widow, which St. Luke says Jesus gave us so that we would learn about the “necessity for them to pray always without losing heart.” Notice it wasn’t about the “suggestion” of trying to find time to pray, or the “helpful tip,” but the sine qua non If this persevering widow was able eventually to get a corrupt judge to do the right thing when she was being victimized, Jesus says, how much more will God the Father, the Just Judge, “secure the rights of his chosen ones,” his beloved sons and daughters, “who call out to him day and night.” Jesus implies that God’s chosen ones do call out to him not just when convenient, not just when there’s an emergency, but night and day. His chosen ones pray always without growing weary. We seek to unite ourselves to him not just in formal times of prayer, but in our study, our work, our hobbies, even our sleep.

* At the end of the parable, however, Jesus asks a haunting question: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” At first it’s seems like a non-sequitur. Jesus is talking about prayer through a story of a persistent widow and a corrupt judge but then he turns to asking about whether he will find people faithful. What’s the connection? It’s because prayer is faith-in-action. Jesus was asking whether when he comes — and by this he certainly means the end of our life, but since he can come at any point, he also means right now, tomorrow, any time — will he find us ultimately persevering in prayer? One of the reasons why it seems God does not always answer our prayers immediately is because he wants to train us in how to pray without wearying. If we got everything we asked for immediately, we might only pray episodically, when we need something. God loves us too much for that. Pope Francis focused on this point a few years ago, explaining that Jesus’ words about the necessity of praying always without giving up lead us “to deepen a very important aspect of the faith.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Chapel of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY

Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

October 16, 2022

Ex 17:8-13, Ps 121, 2 Tim 3:14-4:2; Lk 18:1-8

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.16.22_MC_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

At the end of today’s Gospel, Jesus asks a truly haunting question, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” The question seems to be for him more than rhetorical. Jesus asks it, it seems, because he’s not convinced that when he comes, he’s going to find faith. We are living in an age and culture in which many seem to be drifting away from the faith. A couple of years ago, the Pew Research Center recently released the results of a survey that shows that in 65 percent of American adults say that they’re Christians, down 12 percentage points in just the previous decade. Those who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics and “nothing in particular” are now at 26 percent of the population, up from 17 percent in 2009. Catholics are just now 20 percent of the adult population, down from 23 percent, where it had held stable for a generation. We have all seen the consequences of these trends, which have led to the shuttering of some Churches, schools, convents and seminaries. Catholics have seen it among our family members and friends who are no longer practicing. We have seen it in empty pews in many Catholic parishes on Sundays.

This is all a result ultimately of spreading secularism. Secularism, as Pope Benedict once incisively defined it, is living etsi Deus non daretur, living as God does not exist. One may still believe in God, but one lives like everyone else, like those who do not believe. Even though someone never consciously made a choice against God, life gets structured almost entirely without him. People live self-reliantly trusting in themselves rather than in God. That’s why Jesus’ question is so timely: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Jesus’ point in asking the question is certainly not to get us afraid of the future or frightening of his ambushing us unawares at a moment we least expect. It is meant to help us never to take our faith for granted. Faith is a gift of God but it’s also a virtue, a moral muscle, we’re called to exercise and make stronger. Jesus wants to fortify our faith. Today he shows us how to buttress it in the parable of the persistent widow. The real test of whether he will find faith in us, he indicates, is whether, when he comes, he will find us persevering in prayer, seeking to unite our whole day and life, our mind, our heart and our soul to God. Prayer is faith in action. We live as we pray and we pray as we live and if we’re going to be found faithful, we will be found prayerful. That’s why Jesus teaches us today not about the “suggestion” or the “helpful idea” of “praying always without growing weary,” but about the “necessity” of doing so. He seeks to show us how to “cry out to God day and night.” He wants to train us to live that way so that no matter what time he comes, he will find us an existence-made-prayer, united to him in a prayer of our whole life.

The message about the necessity of prayer is similarly underlined in today’s first reading, in the fierce desert battle between the Israelites and the Amalekites. Joshua and the Israelite soldiers were on the battlefield. Moses climbed the top of a nearby hill with the staff of God. Whenever Moses raised his hands raised in prayer, the Israelites dominated. Whenever his hands grew tired and fell, the Israelites were pummeled. Hence Moses’ two assistants, his brother Aaron and Hur,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

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

October 15, 2022

 

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

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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 as Jesus will ask us a haunting question, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” The question seems to be more than rhetorical. Jesus asks it, it appears, because he’s not convinced that when he comes he’s going to find faith. We are living in an age and culture in which many seem to be drifting away from the faith. Recent surveys have shown that 65 percent of American adults say that they’re Christian, down 12 percentage points in just the last decade. Those who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics and “nothing in particular” are now at 26 percent of the population, up from 17 percent in 2009. Catholics are just now 20 percent of the adult population, down from 23 percent a decade ago. We have all seen the consequences of these trends, which have led to the shuttering of some Churches, schools, convents and seminaries. We’ve seen it among our family members and friends whom we know and love who are no longer practicing. We’ve seen it in empty seats in many Catholic parishes. This is all a result ultimately of spreading secularism in our culture and within our homes. Secularism, as Pope Benedict once incisively defined it, is living etsi Deus non daretur, living as God does not exist. One may still believe in God, but one lives like everyone else, like those who do not believe. We watch the same programs and listen to the same podcasts. We make the same choices on Monday through Saturday, and eventually start making them on Sunday, too. We start making them at the beginning of life, at the end of life, in the middle of life. And even though we never consciously made a choice against God, our life is structured almost entirely without him. That’s why Jesus’ question is so timely: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

* Jesus’ point in asking the question is certainly not to get us afraid of the future or frightened of his ambushing us unawares at a moment we least expect. It is meant to help us never to take our faith for granted. Faith is a gift of God but it’s also a virtue, a moral muscle, that we’re called to exercise and make stronger. Jesus wants to fortify our faith. This Sunday he shows us how to buttress it in the parable of the persistent widow seeking justice against an unjust judge. If even an unjust judge finally heeded the request of a persistent widow for justice, how could God the Just Judge refuse the persevering request of a beloved son or daughter?

* Jesus says that the real test of whether he will find faith in us is whether, when he comes, he will find us persevering in prayer. That does not mean necessarily we’re going to be on our knees, or fingering the Rosary, or lingering in Church. It means that he is going to find us seeking to unite our whole day and life, our mind, our heart and our soul to God. Prayer is faith in action. We live as we pray and we pray as we live and if we’re going to be found faithful, we will be found prayerful. That’s why Jesus teaches us through the parable not about the “suggestion,” or the “helpful idea” of “praying always without growing weary,” but about the “necessity” of doing so. He seeks to show us how to “cry out to God day and night.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Totus Tuus Family Conference: “The Eucharist, Our Lady and the Church”

Catholic Family Land, Bloomingdale, Ohio

“My Highway to Heaven: Blessed Carlo Acutis and Personal and Ecclesial Eucharistic Revival” October 14, 2022

 

To listen to an audio recording of the first 33 minutes of the 45 minute conference, please click below: 

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My Highway to Heaven- Blessed Carlo Acutis and Personal and Ecclesial Eucharistic Revival

 

 

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Diocese of Phoenix Catholic Social Teaching Program

The Virtue of Justice

October 13, 2022

 

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Virtue of Justice, Phoenix

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

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

Votive Mass of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

105th Anniversary of the last of the Apparitions in Fatima

October 13, 2022

Eph 1:1-10, Ps 98, Lk 11:47-54

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.13.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in today’s homily: 

* Today we begin two weeks of study of St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, which is one of the most uplifting and synthetic of all the great apostle’s teaching of the early Church, in which he makes plain God the Father’s plan and will to bring all things into a union of love through the work of Christ his Son continued and carried out in his body the Church. At the very beginning of the letter, which we have today, St. Paul describes what God has done for us and what he asks of us. It’s important for us to ponder these truths often, especially when we are having a bad day or are tempted to forget who we are.

* St. Paul begins by reminding us of how blessed we are to be Christians: the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has “blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens.” God held nothing back. There are no blessings we haven’t been given. And we’ve been given those blessings not just through Christ but in Christ, who is the greatest blessing of all.

* He then reminds us of our vocation: God chose us in Christ, “before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.” Before God said, “Let there be light” and “Let us make man in our image,” he not only had us in mind but chose us and he gave us the vocation to be saints, to be holy and immaculate before him. If he’s given us this vocation, he will provide the means, and those means are the every spiritual blessing in Christ his Son.

* He then reminds us of our filiation and inheritance: “In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved.” In St. Paul’s day, when someone was adopted, he was treated identically to a biologically child; if he were older than the oldest biological child, he received all the rights of primogeniture. For St. Paul to talk about our being adopted, he means that we have received the full inheritance of Jesus! How can we not praise the glory of this grace?

* But obviously we’re sinners and fallen, but God has taken that into consideration as well from before the creation of the world. “In Christ, we have redemption by his Blood, the forgiveness of transgressions, in accord with the riches of his grace that he has lavished upon us.” He has lavished his mercy upon us in Christ as part of every spiritual blessing.

* And he has also made plain his plan so that we can cooperate freely and fully with it: “In all wisdom and insight, he has made known to us the mystery of his will in accord with his favor that he set forth in him as a plan for the fullness of times, to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth.” The mystery is now an open secret: God wants to bring us into communion, communion with God, communion with each other. He wants us to grasp that all of creation is part of God’s plan of love. Christ’s mission is to restore to unity the various divisions that entered through sin.

* That’s God’s blessing, calling, adoption, help and plan, but he has made us free and we need to respond to that plan by embracing it and letting our whole life develop in accordance with it. As we prayed in the Psalm, “The Lord has made known his salvation,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Napa Institute Principled Entrepreneurship Conference

Sheraton Times Square, Manhattan

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

Memorial of Blessed Carlo Acutis

October 12, 2022

Gal 5:18-25, Ps 1, Lk 11:42-46

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.12.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today we come to the end of our reading of St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians and he summarizes everything he’s been saying about the contrast between living thinking one is saved by the law and external deeds versus living to be saved by God through his grace received and responded to with faith. He does so in describing two totally divergent sets of effects. One he calls the “works of the flesh,” because this is what living focused on the “works of law” produces and is entirely the production of the individual; and the other is called the “fruit of the Spirit,” which like natural fruit is made requires the cooperation between the one who sows a seed (in this case, the Holy Spirit) and the one who receives it (in this case, us). The contrast couldn’t be greater. Often when we think of the “works of the flesh” we think first of those living under the three fold concupiscence of the lust of the eyes (materialism), lust of the flesh (carnal sensuality) and the pride of life (a desire for control and dominion). But St. Paul makes clear in context that living according to the works of the law, rather than in communion with the Legislator, can produce these same works of the flesh. He says that the works of the flesh are “obvious”: “immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like.” He says that those who do such things “will not inherit the kingdom of God,” not so much because they’ll be punished but because they won’t be interested in God’s kingdom after having made other things their god.

* Jesus pronounces a series of “woes” (indications of a cursed life) in the Gospel to those Scribes and Pharisees who, even though they thought they were living the way God wanted them to live were living ultimately according to the flesh. Unless they converted, he said, they’d be doomed, because while they were paying tithes on the smallest of garden herbs they were “pay[ing] no attention to judgment and to love for God.” They focus on the most conspicuous seats and the greetings of others, but are spiritually dead, “like unseen graves over which people unknowingly walk.” To use the words of today’s Psalm, they’re ultimately like the “chaff that the wind drives away.” They impose burdens on others hard to carry without lifting a finger to help them, the exact opposite of a Good Samaritan. We see the works of the flesh in the way they attacked Jesus and others he had come to save. We see their idolatry of the law. We witness their immorality, hatred, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of anger, acts of selfishness and envy in the way they conspired to have Jesus framed and executed. We see their dissensions and factions in the discussions of the Sanhedrin, to which many of them belonged. On the outside they seemed to be doing the works of God, Jesus was saying, but on the inside they were just doing works of the flesh, refusing to enter the kingdom, and producing only chaff and interior death.

* St. Paul calls the Galatians and all of us Christians to another path. In the Psalm, it’s described as the way of the “blessed man” who “delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on His law day and night,” not as a dry document or as an idol but as a means of growing in love with t...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, Manhattan

Memorial of St. John XXIII

Votive Mass of the Holy Eucharist

Sixtieth Anniversary of the Second Vatican Council

October 11, 2022

1 Cor 11:23-26, Ps 116, Jn 6:51-58

 

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

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The following text guided the homily: 

The section of Manhattan in which we’re located has been called since the early 19th century “Hell’s Kitchen,” a phrase police and civic leaders employed to denote what was then the borough’s most notoriously crime ridden slum. To call it Hell for them was too mild; they considered it the furnace of hell.

And so it was fitting that in 1876, when the Archdiocese of New York decided to establish a parish here, they named it after the Sacred Heart of Jesus, where Catholics could focus on a different type of fire, the white hot flames of Jesus’ loving and merciful heart, and be ignited with the fire of the Holy Spirit to go out to extinguish the vestiges of hell throughout the neighborhood.

It’s also appropriate for us to come here today to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, convened in order to reinvigorate the Church’s mission to sanctify the world and bring Christ and his Gospel even to those corners considered most forlorn.

We celebrate this landmark anniversary in a particularly Eucharistic way, since the fathers of Vatican II repeatedly declared that Jesus in the Holy Eucharist is the source and summit, root and center of the Christian life and of everything the Church does. All the main teachings of the Council — on the primacy of the word of God, on the universal call to holiness, on authentic Christian humanism, on the vocation of the laity, on religious freedom and on relations with other religions — can all be looked at through a Eucharistic lens.

St. John XXIII, whose feast day the Church celebrates on October 11, proclaimed 60 years ago today at the opening of the Council, “The great problem confronting the world after almost two thousand years remains unchanged,” namely to recognize Jesus Christ as the “center of history and of life” and choose to believe in him, to follow him and to be with him. Since the Eucharist is Jesus Christ, the choice to follow him is made concrete in a Eucharistic life.

That’s why it’s fitting for us to celebrate this anniversary of the Second Vatican Council with a Mass followed by a Eucharistic procession, taking Jesus Christ out into the world he redeemed and proclaiming him, by our joyful witness, devout prayers, and enthusiastic singing, to be really, truly and substantially among us, and inviting others to join us in following him who is the Way. Our world needs Jesus Christ just as much as ever and as Catholics we cannot keep the treasure of our Eucharistic Lord within our Churches and tabernacles. The love of Christ, and the love of others, compels us to bring him out and share him.

Our Eucharistic procession is taking place during the context of the three-year Eucharistic Revival of the Church in the United States, called by our bishops to stimulate greater Eucharistic knowledge, faith, amazement, love, life and mission. There are various important parts of the Revival. One is to help all Catholics better understand and live the Mass. Another is greater Eucharistic discipleship, shown in a particular way by spending time with Jesus in Eucharistic adoration. A third is Eucharistic charity, as we imitate Jesus in giving our body and blood, our time, money and talents, out of love for those Jesus loves. And a fourth is a more ardent Eucharistic apostolate,

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...