Catholic Preaching

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,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

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

October 1, 2022

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.1.22_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 the apostles approach Jesus to ask him for something. They did not ask the Lord for money. They didn’t ask for fame. They didn’t ask, like Solomon, for worldly wisdom and prudence. They didn’t ask for health or a long life. They asked for something they had discovered was far more important than all of these things combined. They begged him, “Increase our faith!”

* Their petition for increased faith reveals their humble recognition that up until then — even though they were followers of Jesus, even though they were listening to his words, even though they had become in fact his friends — they were not living enough by faith and that they needed the Lord’s help to grow. This Sunday we’re urged to make the same prayer to the Lord.

* To ask for an increase in faith means to ask for three things, since 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). She trusted in God when Simeon prophesied that her Son the Messiah would be a “sign of contradiction” rather than a triumphant king and that her own soul would be pierced (Lk 2:34-35). She trusted when she saw her Son carry the wood of his sacrifice up the same mountain that Isaac ascended and no angel held back the hands of the Roman soldiers as they nailed him to the Cross. She trusted when she held her Son’s limp, bloodied body in her arms. She trusted that God would bring great good, in fact our salvation, out of all of this evil. Likewise for us to ask God to “increase our faith!” is to ask Him to increase our trust in Him, so that we might confidently obey him in everything, but especially in the most difficult times and circumstances. On Wednesday this week we will celebrate the feast of St. Faustina Kowalska, the Polish cloistered nun through whom Jesus revealed to us devotion to his Divine Mercy. Jesus had her paint an image of his blessing us with his mercy at the bottom of which he instructed her to write, “Jesus, I trust in you.” The first way we’re called to grow in faith is through trusting in God, trusting in his ways, trusting in how all things — even suffering, or death, or crucifixion — work out for the good for those who love him. When we pray, “Lord increase our faith,” God responds to infusing within us this gift,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Passages for Catholic Board Meeting, Bar Harbor, Maine

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

Memorial of St. Jerome, Doctor

September 30, 2022

Job 38:1.12-21;40:3-5, Ps 139, Lk 10:13-16

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/9.30.22_Homily_Edited_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* “Guide me, Lord, along the everlasting way.” As we meet in order to organize better to bring Catholic university students to the Holy Land, we remember that their pilgrimages in the footsteps of Jesus are ultimately meant to guide them along the everlasting way, along the path not merely to the earthly but to the heavenly Jerusalem. Today the Lord responds to that prayer for guidance we repeated several times in the Responsorial Psalm, indicating to us not only the beginning of that path but how to persevere in following the Lord to eternal life. That way begins by recognizing who God is and how he acts, receiving his work, words and will, and responding to him with reverence, faith and perseverance. Today’s reading and feast drive home that point.

* In the Gospel, Jesus reproves Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum for their failure to respond profoundly to all that he did among them, saying that if what he did in those cities had been done in the debauched pagan cities of Tyre and Sidon — and, according to a similar passage in St. Matthew — in Sodom and Gomorrah, the inhabitants would all have repented. He didn’t find, however, profound conversion in the three cities of Galilee and threatened that they would go to Hell rather than be exalted. In St. Matthew’s Gospel, which is either a more detailed account of the same words or the description of a similar scene, Jesus said that the Queen of Sheba had come to hear Solomon’s wisdom, and the Ninevites had repented at the preaching of Jonah, but there was a greater than Solomon and Jonah among them, and they hadn’t received the wisdom and repented. They didn’t recognize who was among them.

* This is something God taught Job in today’s first reading. After Job finally succumbed to his grief and to his physical suffering and began to question God’s wisdom and goodness, God spoke to him reminding him that he was the commander of the morning, who holds the ends of the earth, who has entered the sources of the sea and knows the breadth of the earth. God almost seems to joke with Job asking how old he is compared to God. Job, having heard God speak, responded with humility, putting his hand over his mouth and listening to what God had said verbally and through his works, rather than seeking to lecture God.

* This brings us to the Alleluia verse and the end of today’s Gospel. “If today you hear [God’s] voice,” we sang, “harden not your hearts” (Ps 95). Jesus described the spiritual hardening of the arteries at the end of today’s Gospel in terms of what happens to him and what will likewise happen to us. Either God’s word will be received or rejected.  “Whoever listens to you listens to me,” Jesus says. “Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” Jesus is calling all of us to ponder whether we really listen to him or reject him, especially as he speaks to us through his emissaries, the apostles, their successors and others, and as he speaks to us through the evangelists and apostles who have been the Holy Spirit’s instruments to give us God’s word.

* It’s very fitting today to be celebrating the Feast of St. Jerome  not only with pilgrimages to the Holy Land in mind but with these words about how we listen to God through the means with which he speaks to us, particularly Sacred Scripture and the saints. St.