Catholic Preaching

Catholic Preaching

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  • Advent Fire, Second Saturday of Advent, December 13, 2025

    Msgr. Roger J. Landry

    Church of St. Agnes, Manhattan
    Advent Day of Recollection for the Leonine Forum
    Saturday of the Second Week of Advent
    December 13, 2025
    Sir 48:1-4.9-11, Ps 80, Mt 17:9-13

     

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

    https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.13.25_Homily_on_Advent_Fire_1.mp3

     

    The following text guided the homily: 

    • One of the most important things to grow in the practice of the Catholic faith is to help them understand the liturgy and its many liturgical symbols. During the Advent season, one of those symbols is the Advent Wreath. I often ask people, “What’s the most important part of the symbolism of the Advent Wreath?” Some reply the evergreen wreath, which is a reminder of God’s unfading fidelity to his covenant, his merciful love that endures forever. Others say it’s the candles, how, according to medieval color schemes, the purple candles show hope and penitence, and the rose candle shows joy. Those are both solid guesses but neither’s right. The most important part of the Advent wreath is the flame. We show by the flame that, like the wise bridesmaids waiting for the return of the Bridegroom in Jesus’ parable, we are on fire waiting for coming of Jesus. As Advent grows, so does that fire: it doubles, it triples, it quadruples. Eventually we’re supposed to be burning on all cylinders, showing that we’re loving God with all our mind, heart, soul and strength. Today’s Day of Recollection is meant to pour gasoline on that fire.
    • The readings today help us to do this in helping us to focus on the Prophet Elijah and St. John the Baptist. Sirach tells us in the first reading, “Like a fire there appeared the prophet Elijah,” his words were a “flaming furnace,” in his “zeal” three times he “brought down fire,” he was even taken aloft in a “whirlwind of fire, in a charity with fiery horses.” Elijah’s whole prophetic work was to bring divine fire to earth and to help people respond with fire. It was the same thing with St. John the Baptist. His mission wasn’t a cold engineering project to level spiritual mountains, fill valleys, straighten crooked roads, and smooth rough ones. It was to help get us ready to embrace Christ, who when he finally began his public ministry announced, “I have come to set the world on fire and how I am in anguish until it is enkindled.” John the Baptist’s work was, in a sense, to get all the wood ready and dry for this world-embracing blaze.
    • Jesus points to the connection between Elijah and John the Baptist in today’s Gospel. Peter, James and John asked Jesus, as they were descending from the mountain of Transfiguration after having witnessed Elijah and Moses conversing with Jesus, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” The prophet Malachi had foretold, “Behold, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes” (Mal 4:5; Mal 3:1). As daily Mass goers heard on Thursday, when Jesus said that no one born of woman is greater than John the Baptist, “If you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah, the one who is to come. Whoever has ears ought to hear.” In today’s Gospel, Jesus is far more explicit in response to the three apostles’ question, declaring, “Elijah will indeed come and restore all things, but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him but did to him whatever they pleased. So also will the Son of Man suffer at their hands” (Mt 17:12). Just as people had manhandled his precursor, just as Elijah himself was persecuted, harassed and hunted down by the prophets and royal patrons of the pagan god Ba’al, so Jesus himself would likewise suffer. Just as John the Baptist as the long-awaited “Elijah” pointed out the long-awaited “Messiah” — in birth, preaching and death — so the “Messiah” was here pointing out the long-awaited “Elijah.”
    • When John came, his words, too, were like a flaming furnace and his work to clear debris with a spiritual firehose. He said to those who were coming to him at the Jordan, “Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” His words point out two essential aspects of Advent. The first is the fire of conversion, in which we allow God to burn away, to purify, whatever is unworthy of him. The second is to help us live out our baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire. The Holy Spirit came down upon the earliest members of the Church as tongues of fire so that we could then continue Jesus’ work of igniting the whole world. The two applications go together. The Advent fire is meant to bring about both greater conversion and greater zeal.
    • Pope Benedict once gave an unforgettable Pentecost homily when he talked about how God wants to light us on fire with the fire of the Holy Spirit. But he said many of us first must overcome a fear of that holy flame: “The divine fire frightens us, we are afraid of being ‘burned,’ we prefer to stay just as we are. This is because our life is often formed according to the logic of having, of possessing and not the logic of self-giving. Many people believe in God and admire the person of Jesus Christ, but when they are asked to lose something of themselves, then they retreat, they are afraid of the demands of faith. There is the fear of giving up something nice to which we are attached; the fear that following Christ deprives us of freedom, of certain experiences, of a part of ourselves. On one hand, we want to be with Jesus, follow him closely, and, on the other hand, we are afraid of the consequences that this brings with it. … We must know how to recognize that losing something, indeed, losing ourselves for the true God, the God of love and of life, is, in reality, gaining ourselves, finding ourselves more fully. Whoever entrusts himself to Jesus already experiences in this life peace and joy of heart, which the world cannot give, and cannot take away, once God has given it to us. So it is worthwhile to let ourselves be touched by the fire of the Holy Spirit! The suffering that it causes us is necessary for our transformation. It is the reality of the cross: It is not for nothing that in the language of Jesus ‘fire’ is above all a representation of the cross, without which Christianity does not exist.” Pope Benedict said that the flame of God’s love is like the burning bush from which God spoke to Moses (Ex 3:2). “It is a flame that burns but does not destroy, that, in burning, brings forth the better and truer part of man, as in a fusion it makes his interior form emerge, his vocation to truth and to love.  … It causes a transformation, and it must for this reason consume something in man, the waste that corrupts him and hinders his relations with God and neighbor.”
    • Someone who lived with that fire was St. Lucy. Early in life she was touched by the Lord’s love. She offered herself to him in virginal love, but her mother Eutychia nevertheless made plans to marry her off to a rich pagan. After her spurned suitor grasped that her vow of virginity likely meant that she was a Christian and turned her over to Diocletian’s persecutorial administration, she was condemned to death in Syracuse, Sicily. What St. Ambrose said of St. Agnes’ virginity we could likewise say of St. Lucy’s: “Virginity is praiseworthy not because it is found in virgin martyrs, but because it itself makes the virgin martyrs.” The type of love that leads one to consecrate herself totally to God in response to his love, who battles temptations every day to keep that love pure, is what makes a person strong in loving him to the end, loving him despite suffering, torture and even execution. When virginity, or celibate chastity for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, is assumed and lived to the full, it leads to loving fidelity in little and big things, it leads to a daily martyrdom, a witness, of the love we’ve first received and can’t help but radiate. Lucy’s name, from the Latin word for light, testifies to the fact that her existence radiated the light coming from the flame of divine love. We’re all supposed to radiate that light. We’re all supposed to give off that warmth and illumine others. God wants to eliminate the impurities in our human love so that we might in fact see and love him in others, and ground all our interactions with others with holy fire of God.
    • The greatest way we get filled with fire is here at Mass. St. Ephrem, the fourth century Syrian doctor of the Church, used to say that when we receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist we receive “fire.” It’s here that we get ignited to go out and light the world ablaze. So today, as we begin this Day of Recollection as we near the midpoint of Advent, let us receive the word of Elijah and John the Baptist and run out to meet Christ who comes to reignite us. With the words of the Psalm, we implore, “Lord, make us turn to you. Let us see your face and we shall be saved.” And we ask St. Lucy, patron saint of those with eye troubles, to help us and others keep our eyes fixed on him, the Lamb of God, always so that, after the long Advent of earthly life, we may come to experience eternal joy in that kingdom where we hope to see him with eyes burning with love (Rev 1:14, 2:18, 19:12), looking at us forever.

      •  

      The readings for today’s Mass were: 

      Reading 1 SIR 48:1-4, 9-11
      In those days,
      like a fire there appeared the prophet Elijah
      whose words were as a flaming furnace.
      Their staff of bread he shattered,
      in his zeal he reduced them to straits;
      By the Lord’s word he shut up the heavens
      and three times brought down fire.
      How awesome are you, Elijah, in your wondrous deeds!
      Whose glory is equal to yours?
      You were taken aloft in a whirlwind of fire,
      in a chariot with fiery horses.
      You were destined, it is written, in time to come
      to put an end to wrath before the day of the LORD,
      To turn back the hearts of fathers toward their sons,
      and to re-establish the tribes of Jacob.
      Blessed is he who shall have seen you
      and who falls asleep in your friendship.
      Responsorial Psalm PS 80:2AC AND 3B, 15-16, 18-19
      R. (4) Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.
      O shepherd of Israel, hearken,
      From your throne upon the cherubim, shine forth.
      Rouse your power.
      R. Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.
      Once again, O LORD of hosts,
      look down from heaven, and see;
      Take care of this vine,
      and protect what your right hand has planted
      the son of man whom you yourself made strong.
      R. Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.
      May your help be with the man of your right hand,
      with the son of man whom you yourself made strong.
      Then we will no more withdraw from you;
      give us new life, and we will call upon your name.
      R. Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.
      Alleluia LK 3:4, 6

      R. Alleluia, alleluia.

      Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths:
      All flesh shall see the salvation of God.
      R. Alleluia, alleluia.

      Gospel MT 17:9A, 10-13
      As they were coming down from the mountain,
      the disciples asked Jesus,
      “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”
      He said in reply, “Elijah will indeed come and restore all things;
      but I tell you that Elijah has already come,
      and they did not recognize him but did to him whatever they pleased.
      So also will the Son of Man suffer at their hands.”
      Then the disciples understood
      that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.

      The post Advent Fire, Second Saturday of Advent, December 13, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

      15 min
    • Becoming “Violent” Like Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Second Thursday of Advent, December 11, 2025

      Msgr. Roger J. Landry
      IESE Business School, Manhattan
      Leonine Forum New York Chapter

      Thursday of the Second Week of Advent
      Memorial of Pope St. Damasus
      December 11, 2025
      Is 41:13-20, Ps 145, Mt 11:11-15


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

      https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.11.25_homily_Edited.mp3

       

      The following text guided the homily: 

      • The Jews were waiting in the long Advent for two figures. The most important was obviously the Messiah. The second was Elijah, whom God had said through the Prophet Malachi, “Behold, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes” (Mal 4:5; Mal 3:1). Jesus in today’s Gospel identified the work of Elijah with St. John the Baptist, telling us, “If you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah, the one who is to come.” Later in St. Matthew’s Gospel, as we will hear on Saturday at the Leonine Forum Day of Recollection, after Elijah appeared with Moses speaking to Jesus during the Transfiguration, Jesus was even more explicit, pointing out how they had manhandled his precursor: “Elijah will indeed come and restore all things, but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him but did to him whatever they pleased. So also will the Son of Man suffer at their hands” (Mt 17:12). “Elijah” pointed out the “Messiah” and the “Messiah” was pointing out “Elijah.” The fulfillment of the Advent for the one who would come in the person of Elijah was an indication of the even greater, long-awaited fulfillment.
      • Because of John the Baptist’s role in pointing out the Messiah, however, not to mention because of his personal holiness and witness to the point of martyrdom, Jesus said something astonishing in today’s Gospel: “Amen, I say to you, among those born of women, there has been none greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” First, Jesus was saying that up until then John was the greatest human being who had ever lived. We need to ponder that. There were lots of heroic martyrs and faithful Israelites, but he had the role to make straight the paths of the Lord. He was one born of a woman having already been blessed by God in the womb. No one had been born so exalted as to have pointed out by his leaping the Messiah. And he was still pointing him out, at the Jordan, through preaching repentance and faith, through martyrdom. But Jesus goes on to say that the littlest in the kingdom of God was even greater than John, that the one sanctified in the womb of the Kingdom is greater than all those born just of women. This is not so much a testimony about moral greatness — because few of us will come close to St. John’s holiness — but about objective greatness, and a reminder to us of just how lucky we are to have been reborn in that womb of the Church soon after birth or whenever we entered into the sacred waters. We’re also greater in the sense that we’ve seen and received the full revelation of Christ to which John was still in some sense prophesying. John had not yet seen what would come later: Jesus’s incredible love revealed for us on the Cross that gave us the power to become children of God.
      • But just as there was a cost for John’s becoming the greatest born of woman — his suffering on account of pointing out not only the Lamb but the Bridegroom and therefore the truth about marriage before Herod — so there’s a cost for our Christian greatness in fully entering the kingdom. Jesus describes both sufferings in the Gospel: “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent are taking it by force.” There are two types of violence Jesus describes: violence against the Kingdom and violence for the Kingdom.
      • We see the violence against the Kingdom from the beginning: the slaughter of the Holy Innocents in order to assassinate the baby King of the Jews; Jesus’ neighbors in Nazareth trying to murder him by throwing him off the Nazarene cliff; the collusion of the arch-inimical Sadducees, Pharisees, and Romans to have Jesus executed; the sufferings of the apostles; the slaughter of so many martyrs; the persecution of the Church throughout time right down to what our brothers and sisters are suffering today, especially in northern Nigeria. Jesus told us that we would be hated by all because of his name and that what they did to him they would try to do to us. The Kingdom will suffer violence against it until the end of time and we need to be prepared.
      • But there’s also a violence Jesus describes for the Kingdom. St. Luke says in a similar passage, “The kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and men of violence take it by force” (Lk 16:16). We need to seize the Kingdom. We need to be able to do violence to ourselves, to our earthly values, in order to enter into it. We need to agonize to enter through the narrow gate. We need to deny ourselves, pick up our Cross and follow Jesus. We need to sell what we have, give the money to the poor, and follow Jesus up close. We need to lose our life to save it. We need to love him more than our parents, families and even ourselves to be worthy of it. None of this is easy, but when we recognize the value of the kingdom, we’re able to give up everything else to seize this pearl of great price. We’re able to do violence to gain that lasting peace. That’s one of the points about Catholic moral theology that we’ll be pondering in tonight’s session.
      • Many of us, however, when we hear about this violence against and for the Kingdom shudder. Many of us don’t like even to get shots at the doctors office because we’re afraid of needles, yet Jesus calls to us — with nails through his limbs on the Cross — to come follow him. It can be hard to take. It can seem as if it’s not really part of the “good news.” Suffering itself is not part of the good news any more than suffering and death are ontological goods. What is part of the good news is what God says to us today through the Prophet Isaiah. We don’t suffer alone. With words that would deeply console the Jews in Babylon during the exile, God tells them, “Fear not, I will help you. … I am the Lord, your God, who grasp your right hand.” He promises that he will answer the prayers of those who are parched in search of water, and not just give them a few drops, but open up rivers on mountain tops, fountains in valleys, turn deserts into marshlands, dry ground into springs, “so that all may see and know, observe and understand that the hand of the Lord has done this.” These words of God — “Fear not, I will help you,” “Do not be afraid I am with you” — are often repeated throughout salvation history. God said them to Moses at the burning bush when he asked how he, a simple shepherd, could go before Pharaoh. He said them to Joshua when he feared how a group of nomads could defeat the fortified city of Jericho. He said them to Paul when he was in jail in Corinth. He said them to the apostles who were frightened on the sea. “Do not be afraid I am with you.” Every Advent we pray for the triple coming of God-with-us, and Jesus comes not in a static way, but comes to save us, to rescue us, to redeem us, to strengthen us, to take away our fears, to make us great, to quench our thirst, and to help us to take the Kingdom of God by force by being willing to suffer violence for it.
      • The way we experience all the lessons in today’s readings is in the Mass. This is where our real greatness shines. We come here where God feeds us, but he feeds us in such a way that we can enter into his suffering for the salvation of the world. Some of us need to suffer violence to come here, violence from bosses or colleagues who don’t want us leaving the office even at 6 pm, or violence from friends or perhaps loved ones who don’t want us prioritizing anything over them. Some of us need to suffer violence to walk across the city on a cold night or to align our schedules to the value of the kingdom. But in some sense all of us need to do more violence if we’re going to receive more from the kingdom. At the offertory, we present all of that violence endured and chosen, together with Christ’s, to the Father. The Mass is the supreme sacrifice of Christ and his Body to the Father; for us to pray the Mass and to get what God wants to give us out of it we need to go all in, “violently,” seizing this incredible gift and ordering our whole life to this source and summit of our faith and our Christian life. But the Mass is also a means that strengthens us to be able to make this sacrifice of our life. The more and the better we receive Jesus worthily in Holy Communion, the more we’re able to make our whole life a commentary on the words of consecration, offering our body, our blood, our sweat, our tears, our breath together with Christ for others and their salvation. Today as we come to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, violently shed for us on the Cross, he tells us, “Fear not. I will help you!,” as he seeks to strengthen us to go out to seize and proclaim his kingdom and live in accordance with the greatness — the greatness exceeding even that of the greatest born of woman — the greatness we have received from our gracious, merciful, patient and infinitely kind God.

        •  

        The readings for today’s Mass were: 

        Is 41:13-20

        I am the LORD, your God,

        who grasp your right hand;
        It is I who say to you, “Fear not,
        I will help you.”
        Fear not, O worm Jacob,
        O maggot Israel;
        I will help you, says the LORD;
        your redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
        I will make of you a threshing sledge,
        sharp, new, and double-edged,
        To thresh the mountains and crush them,
        to make the hills like chaff.
        When you winnow them, the wind shall carry them off
        and the storm shall scatter them.
        But you shall rejoice in the LORD,
        and glory in the Holy One of Israel.

        The afflicted and the needy seek water in vain,

        their tongues are parched with thirst.
        I, the LORD, will answer them;
        I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
        I will open up rivers on the bare heights,
        and fountains in the broad valleys;
        I will turn the desert into a marshland,
        and the dry ground into springs of water.
        I will plant in the desert the cedar,
        acacia, myrtle, and olive;
        I will set in the wasteland the cypress,
        together with the plane tree and the pine,
        That all may see and know,
        observe and understand,
        That the hand of the LORD has done this,
        the Holy One of Israel has created it.

        Responsorial Psalm
        145:1 and 9, 10-11, 12-13ab

        R.    (8)  The Lord is gracious and merciful; slow to anger, and of great kindness.

        I will extol you, O my God and King,
        and I will bless your name forever and ever.
        The LORD is good to all
        and compassionate toward all his works.
        R.    The Lord is gracious and merciful; slow to anger, and of great kindness.
        Let all your works give you thanks, O LORD,
        and let your faithful ones bless you.
        Let them discourse of the glory of your Kingdom
        and speak of your might.
        R.    The Lord is gracious and merciful; slow to anger, and of great kindness.
        Let them make known to men your might
        and the glorious splendor of your Kingdom.
        Your Kingdom is a Kingdom for all ages,
        and your dominion endures through all generations.
        R.    The Lord is gracious and merciful; slow to anger, and of great kindness.

        Alleluia
        See Is 45:8

        R. Alleluia, alleluia.

        Let the clouds rain down the Just One,
        and the earth bring forth a Savior.
        R. Alleluia, alleluia.

        Gospel
        Mt 11:11-15

        Jesus said to the crowds:

        “Amen, I say to you,
        among those born of women
        there has been none greater than John the Baptist;
        yet the least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
        From the days of John the Baptist until now,
        the Kingdom of heaven suffers violence,
        and the violent are taking it by force.
        All the prophets and the law prophesied up to the time of John.
        And if you are willing to accept it,
        he is Elijah, the one who is to come.
        Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

        The post Becoming “Violent” Like Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Second Thursday of Advent, December 11, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

        17 min
      • Mary and the Remedy to Various Challenges in Priestly Life, Day of Recollection for the Seminarians at St. Joseph’s Seminary (Dunwoodie), Yonkers, NY, December 8, 2025

        Msgr. Roger J. Landry

        St. Joseph’s Seminary, Yonkers, New York
        Advent Day of Recollection
        “Immaculate Mary in the Life and the Mission of Priests”
        December 8, 2025

        https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.8.25_Mary_and_the_Remedy_to_Various_Challenges_in_Priestly_Life_1.mp3

        The post Mary and the Remedy to Various Challenges in Priestly Life, Day of Recollection for the Seminarians at St. Joseph’s Seminary (Dunwoodie), Yonkers, NY, December 8, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

        1 hr 15 min
      • Learning from Immaculate Mary How To Live According to Our Identity, Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 2025

        Fr. Roger J. Landry

        St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie, Yonkers, New York
        Day of Recollection on Immaculate Mary in the Life and the Mission of Priests
        Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady
        December 8, 2025
        Gn 3:9-15.20, Ps 98, Eph 1:3-6.11-12, Lk 1:26-38

         

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

        https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.8.25_Homily_1.mp3

         

        The following text guided the homily: 

        • Two months ago, I had the privilege to lead a pilgrimage to Rome for the Jubilee of the Missions. We stayed near the Roman Forum at a place called Hotel Kolbe, which is part of the Conventual Franciscan monastery that they’ve renovated in order not only to provide hospitality for pilgrims but raise some money for the unrenovated part of the monastery where those in formation live. It’s named Hotel Kolbe because it’s where St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe lived from 1912 to 1922 when he was in Rome studying Philosophy and Theology, where he made his first and final profession as a Franciscan, where he was ordained a deacon and a priest, and where he — in 1917, at 23 years old — was inspired to found the Militia of the Immaculate. It was very moving to me and for the pilgrims with me to celebrate Mass in the chapel where he used to pray, a chapel that now bears many images from his life. I’m sure you know the basic elements of his biography. When he was a young boy, after struggling against troublemaking, he began to despair that he would ever be able to turn things around, that his fallen heart would ever be turned right side up. He prayed to our Lady and asked her what would become of him. She appeared to him holding two crowns, one white for purity, the other red for martyrdom, asking if he was willing to accept either of them. He replied that he would accept them both! He had a sense that the Immaculate would always help him to keep his heart pure like God’s merciful heart until he should give his life in testimony to the One who had died for Him. He became a son of St. Francis, obtained two doctorates in Rome, returned and founded a printing press, a daily newspaper, a monthly magazine, a radio station and a huge monastery to run them, called the City of the Immaculate (Niepokalanow), which became the largest monastery of the world. He sought to bring the faith, like a new St. Francis Xavier, both to Japan and to India. But when he returned to Poland as the Nazi menace was growing, his media outlets started to attack the Nazi lies. He also sheltered 3,000 refugees, including 2,000 Jews, in his monastery. It was only a matter of time until the Nazis would come for him. In February 1941, he was arrested and imprisoned in the notorious Pawiak prison where he was routinely beaten and mistreated. At the end of May, he was transferred to Auschwitz, where, because he was a priest, he suffered far more oppression and barbarism than the average degraded and abused prisoner. On July 31, a prisoner from his cell block escaped and in retaliation, Commandant Karl Fritzsch said that ten prisoners at random would be selected to die in a starvation bunker to dissuade anyone else from trying to flee. The tattooed number of Franciszek Gajownicek was called and he cried out “My wife! My children!” That’s when Fr. Kolbe, prisoner 16670, stepped forward. Fritzsch snorted, “What does this Polish pig want?” His words have become famous: “I am a Catholic Priest. I would like to take the place of that man, who has a wife and children.” Fritszch was silent in shock, but then granted the wish. St. Maximilian Mary went with the other nine prisoners to starvation bunker Block 13. He taught them to look forward to heaven, which would come for them imminently after some suffering. He helped them to pray the Rosary to the Immaculate, asking her to pray for them at that moment and at the hour of their death. He celebrated dry Masses in their presence and taught them some chants. He got them to live their last days for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven and for its eternal wedding banquet. Because he was so accustomed to giving his rations to other prisoners, he was able to go without food for great periods of time, and after two weeks, he was still alive, with three others. The Nazis wanted to send others to the starvation bunker and so they injected him with carbolic acid to kill him, the day when he received his white and red imperishable crowns. His last words, his last prayer, said when he extended his arm to the executioner with a needle, were “Hail Mary.”
        • Where did St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe get the awareness so to identify with his priestly vocation that he was able to stand forward and proclaim, “I am a Catholic priest and I want to die for that man?” He got it from Our Lady, to whom he consecrated his whole life with the words many of you and I and Fr. Schweitzer entrusted ourselves this morning. St. Maximilian Mary got it from meditating on what Our Lady said in Lourdes in 1858. You remember what happened there. Our Lady began to appear to 14-year-old St. Bernadette Soubirous, who by this point was unable to read and for that reason had never been formally catechized. Though she was sincere, no one knew whether they could believe her. When Bernadette was asked by her pastor, Fr. Dominique Peyramale, to ask the “beautiful Lady” she claimed was appearing to her what her name us, Our Lady told the 14-year-old girl, in the local patois, Que era soy a Immaculada Concepciou, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Bernadette had no idea what the big words “Immaculate” and “Conception” meant. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception had just been formally defined four years prior and while all Catholics in the Pyrenees believed that Mary was sinless from the beginning of her life, few had heard of the dogma. So when Bernadette told Father Peyramale how the Belle Dame had responded to her question, and carefully tried to be faithful to repronouncing the sounds of what seemed like a foreign language, im-mac-u-la-da-con-cep-ci-ou, he was stunned. He asked her if she knew what these words meant and she humbly replied she didn’t. And that was the verification Father Peyramale was looking for to help authenticate what Bernadette said was happening. Note that when Mary was asked for her name, she didn’t respond, “I am Mary of Nazareth” or “I am the Mother of God.” She humbly bowed her head to the ground, then looked up serenely to heaven as she raised and then folded her hands and said, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” She identified fully with the grace God had given her from the first instant of her life in the womb of her mother St. Anne. She thoroughly interiorized the vocative with which St. Luke greeted her in the Annunciation scene we have for today’s Gospel. To say, “I am the Immaculate Conception” is to articulate, “I am kecharitome,” “I am the one having been filled with grace.” Her contemplative heart humbly grasped who she was, who God had made her to be. And so today we commemorate far more than the beginning of the life of our spiritual mother and her spiritual greatness. We do more than rejoice at the beginning of our redemption, when God, through the merits of her Son on the Cross from 47 years later, preserved her “preveniently” from all stain of original sin from the first moment of her life. We celebrate what Mary herself knew was the core of her identity, which gives witness to the triumph of grace.
        • Maximilian Kolbe used to teach seminarians, priests, members of the Militia Immaculatae and anyone else who would listen that Mary was not merely immaculately conceived, but that her very identity was connected to the grace of her Immaculate Conception. “She is the Immaculate Conception,” he emphasized, underlining that her very identity was connected to the grace of her beginning. He also said that understanding Mary’s identity leads to understanding our own relationship with God, our own vocation, our own mission, our own identity. “The Immaculata,” he said in a conference to seminarians in Niepokalanow, “is the mold of God. He who allows himself to be formed by her becomes ever more like Jesus.” He fully allowed himself to take on this Marian mold, which formed him to be more like the Good Shepherd who lovingly lays down his life for his friends, for his sheep, for others. That’s why, at the supreme moment, when everyone else was fearing to hear his tattooed number called, when Franciszek Gajownicek had begun to weep over the fate of his wife and kids, St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe acted in accordance with his nature elevated by the grace of his vocation as a Christian and as a man ordained in persona Christi. Molded by Mary into the image of her Son, he stepped forward and stunningly proclaimed, not, “I am a Polish dog,” not “I am number 16670,” not even, “I am Raymond Kolbe known in religion as Maximilian Mary,” but, “I am a Catholic Priest,” and we could say almost “therefore,” … “I want to die for that man!”
        • Today I begin with him he shows the consequence that Mary’s Immaculate Conception and entrustment is meant to have in the life of every priest and future priest. Her identity and her influence in our life is meant to make our identity rock solid. He taught seminarians and priests during his lifetime, “The more we belong to the Immaculata, the more we will belong to Jesus,” and urged, “Let yourself be led by the Immaculata as a child is led by its mother.” He said in a 1933 letter, as the foundation of all his extraordinary missionary work, “The Immaculata alone has from God the promise of the victory over Satan,” and told priests directly, “If you want to win souls, work through Mary.”
        • We see in today’s first reading that promise of victory over Satan that is the mission of Christ, of the Church, of Mary and of all priests and baptized. The passage begins with what seems to be the triumph of sin and evil. Satan got our first parents to distrust in God, saying that only reason why they couldn’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was because God was jealous to preserve his power. Once they distrusted God and disobeyed the one restriction he had given, everything changed and there was a three-fold rupture: a rupture with God, shown in the fact that they were trying to hide from him in the Garden; a rupture with each other, manifested by how they covered their most vulnerable parts lest the other hurt them and by how neither could accept responsibility for his or her immoral decisions, with Adam’s trying to blame Eve and Eve’s blaming the serpent; and a rupture within themselves, revealed by how their body and soul would no longer easily align with what God was asking and how both work and childbirth would be done through the struggle to overcome toil, sweat and pangs. The reason, however, why Genesis 3 is today’s first reading is because we also see in this passage the beginning of the redemption, what tradition calls the “proto-evangelium” or “first Gospel.” God promises that he will put enmity between the serpent and the woman and between her offspring and the devil’s. It’s obvious that God didn’t have to do anything for the serpent to have scorn toward us: he already hated us and wanted to bring us down, just as he was showing with our first parents. But he put a real enmity in the new Eve, Mary, for the serpent; between her Offspring — Jesus — and the “children” of the evil one, the other demons; and, insofar as we all became adopted children of Mary on Calvary when Jesus said, “Behold your mother!,” God’s plan was also to put enmity between the devil and us — an enmity that would recognize Satan’s evil works and empty promises, an enmity that would say no to the supposed lure of sin.
        • This all comes to fruition in the Gospel, when we see Mary, having been filled with grace, say a consequential a “yes” to God in response to Eve’s “no.” By her “fiat,” her “let it be done to be according to your word,” the Kecharitomene, the one-who-had-been-filled-with-grace, showed that it was possible for grace to triumph over sin, for God, with our cooperation, to triumph over Satan and evil in the human heart. Mary’s enmity for the serpent out of total love for God was not a one-time declaration. She would continue to reject Satan, all his empty promises, and all his evil works throughout her life into eternity, which is what her self-identification as the Immaculate Conception suggests. This is God’s calling and plan for each us, too, that we have a true enmity for evil so that we, like Mary, through the gift of the redemption we receive not at our conception but at our baptism and thereafter in the sacraments, might be full of grace, full of God, full of joy, full of life.
        • In today’s second reading, St. Paul reminds us that just as God the Father had a plan for Mary, so he “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens,” choosing us in Christ before the beginning of time “to be holy and immaculate in his sight” and to “live for the praise of his glory.” Like Mary was chosen by God, so we have chosen, both in baptism and, a fortiori, for those of us who have been blessed with priestly callings, to be holy and without blemish. None of us has been called merely to be a priest; we have been summoned to become a holy priest or no priest at all. Just as by Mary’s “yes” the history of the world was changed, so through our “yes” God can indeed continue to change the path of history into eternity. As with Mary, however, this won’t happen without our constant consent. We need to spurn the devil and all his allures not just once but continuously. We need to stomp on his head. We need to rejecthim, just as was said at our baptism by our parents and godparents and we renew at least every Easter. That’s what we do whenever we come to the Sacrament of Confession, when, after having fallen like Adam and Eve fell, we come to ask for forgiveness and help and are able to be made by God once again “holy and immaculate” in his sight. But then we must persevere in what and to Whom we say “yes” in love, living up to our call to holiness and our call to be, indeed, holy priests striving to live without the stain of sin and worldliness, priests who sign up truly to follow the crucified eternal high priest and in his person seek to give their life for those with a biological spouse and children as well as those with a mystical spouse and countless spiritual children.
        • Someone who had this type of profound priestly identity, someone who had an extraordinary love for our Lady such that he preached and wrote about her constantly, is my predecessor as National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, whom the Church has already proclaimed lived the Christian life of faith, hope and love to an heroic degree. Born just 15 months after Kolbe, Sheen is the greatest American Catholic preacher of all time, the greatest promoter of the missions, and, until the election of Pope Leo, perhaps the most famous American Catholic. Tomorrow marks the 46th anniversary of his death and, we pray, birth into eternal life. He had a towering intellect and had received an extraordinary education, including the rare agregé from the Catholic University of Louvain, but he was marked far more by his piety and faith, especially his devout love for Our Lady. As we pray for his beatification, which I hope will come as early as next year, I would like us to promise from his thoughts on the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, whom he called The World’s First Love. These thoughts are meant to reinforce our identity as Catholics, as priests and, God willing, as future priests.
        • First, Archbishop Sheen said that in eternity God has two pictures of us: who we are by our choices and who he really intended us to be. There’s some disproportion, he said, between God’s original plan to be holy and blameless in his sight and the way we by our free choices have worked it out. Mary, he said, is the one person in all humanity for whom there was a perfect conformity between God’s ideal and who she was. God thought of her before she was born, like a poet thinks of his poem before he commits it to writing. “The melody of her life,” he stated, “is played just as it was written.” God had this image of her not only in eternity but at the beginning of time, as the response to the first sin and every sin. God conceived her in His eternal mind before she was conceived in the womb of her mother, St. Ann. That was, Sheen would say, her first “immaculate conception.” The same God has in mind for us and those we will serve that first picture and the whole sacramental system of the Church is meant to help restore us to that image.
        • Second, Sheen said that God chose Mary with particular qualities. “If you could have preexisted your mother, would you not have made her the most perfect woman that ever lived?,” he asked. “Why, then, should we think that God would do otherwise?” He commented, “If God [the Father] labored six days in preparing a paradise for man, He would [obviously] spend a longer time preparing a paradise for His Divine Son. As no weeds grew in Eden, so no sin would arise in Mary, the paradise of the Incarnation. Most unbecoming would it be for the sinless Lord to come into the world through a woman afflicted with sin. A barn door cannot fittingly serve as an entrance to a castle.” Mary was therefore, chosen to be immaculate, holy and blameless before him. “The closer one gets to fire, the greater the heat,” he said, and therefore, “the closer one is to God, the greater the purity. Since no one was ever closer to God than the woman whose human portals He threw open to walk this earth, then no one could have been more pure than she. … This special purity of hers we call the Immaculate Conception.” Similarly, God has chosen us with particular qualities so that through us his mercy can shine to a world in need.
        • Third, Archbishop Sheen insisted that the Immaculate Conception “does not imply that Mary needed no redemption. She needed it as much as you and I do.” Whereas we receive the fruits of redemption in our soul at Baptism, he said, “She was redeemed in advance, by way of prevention, in both body and soul, in the first instant of conception… as a result of the merits of Our Lord’s Cross being offered to her at the moment of her conception.” She had this privilege, he stated, not for her sake but for Jesus’, because she was an image of the goodness that existed before sin took over. She was an image of the separation, the enmity, between God and sin. Even though we are not immaculately conceived, we, priests and seminarians, are called to be witnesses to the possibility that we can escape from the dominion of sin, that the grace of mercy can indeed triumph. This was what happened in the life of St. Paul, St. Peter, St. Matthew, St. Augustine, St. Bartolo Longo and every former sinner ever canonized a saint. That is what is meant to occur in us.
        • Finally, he said, Mary is given to us as a model. While insisting that Jesus is the image of the invisible God whom we are always to follow, he added that Jesus’ divinity can sometimes intimidate. “There ought to be, on the human level,” he said, “someone who would give humans hope, someone who could lead us to Christ, someone who would mediate between us and Christ as He mediates between us and the Father.” That’s who Mary is by God’s design. “One look at her,” Sheen said, “and we know that a human who is not good can become better; one prayer to her, and we know that, because she is without sin, we can become less sinful.” He added, against those who say that invoking her somehow takes us away from Christ, “Love for Mary no more derogates from Christ’s Divinity than the setting robs the jewel, or the hearth the flame, or the horizon the sun. She exists but to magnify the Lord, and that was the song of her life.” So Jesus calls us to give people hope, that if God’s grace can triumph in your life and mine, so it can similarly triumph in every human life.
        • As we prepare on this great Solemnity during this Day of Recollection to receive within us the same Son for whom Mary was immaculately conceived in order to gestate for nine months and then give to the world, let us ask the Immaculate Conception personified, our fellow disciple and beloved Mother, the world’s first love, to intercede for us, that we, like her, may have the true enmity against the devil; that we may say and continue to repeat all our days a wholehearted “yes” to God; that we may respond to God’s help to be “holy and immaculate in his sight;” that we might thoroughly identify with our vocation and give our life for others; that, consecrated within her consecration within her Son’s to the Father that we may be consecrated in truth, we may receive Holy Communion today with the same rapture with which she would receive the Blessed Fruit of her womb anew within her at the Masses celebrated by St. John and the first apostles; and that one day we may come, with many others, to experience true joy with her and all the saints where the redemption begun on this day reaches its fulfillment.

          •  

          The readings for today’s Mass were: 

          Reading 1 GN 3:9-15, 20
          After the man, Adam, had eaten of the tree,
          the LORD God called to the man and asked him, “Where are you?”
          He answered, “I heard you in the garden;
          but I was afraid, because I was naked,
          so I hid myself.”
          Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked?
          You have eaten, then,
          from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!”
          The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with meC
          she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.”
          The LORD God then asked the woman,
          “Why did you do such a thing?”
          The woman answered, “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.” 

          Then the LORD God said to the serpent:

          “Because you have done this, you shall be banned
          from all the animals
          and from all the wild creatures;
          on your belly shall you crawl,
          and dirt shall you eat
          all the days of your life.
          I will put enmity between you and the woman,
          and between your offspring and hers;
          he will strike at your head,
          while you strike at his heel.”

          The man called his wife Eve,

          because she became the mother of all the living.

          Responsorial Psalm PS 98:1, 2-3AB, 3CD-4
          R. (1) Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous deeds.
          Sing to the LORD a new song,
          for he has done wondrous deeds;
          His right hand has won victory for him,
          his holy arm.
          R. Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous deeds.
          The LORD has made his salvation known:
          in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.
          He has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness
          toward the house of Israel.
          R. Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous deeds.
          All the ends of the earth have seen
          the salvation by our God.
          Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;
          break into song; sing praise.
          R. Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous deeds.
          Reading 2 EPH 1:3-6, 11-12
          Brothers and sisters:
          Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
          who has blessed us in Christ
          with every spiritual blessing in the heavens,
          as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
          to be holy and without blemish before him.
          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 him we were also chosen,

          destined in accord with the purpose of the One
          who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will,
          so that we might exist for the praise of his glory,
          we who first hoped in Christ.

          Alleluia SEE LK 1:28

          R. Alleluia, alleluia.

          Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you;
          blessed are you among women.
          R. Alleluia, alleluia.

          Gospel LK 1:26-38
          The angel Gabriel was sent from God
          to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
          to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
          of the house of David,
          and the virgin’s name was Mary.
          And coming to her, he said,
          “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”
          But she was greatly troubled at what was said
          and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
          Then the angel said to her,
          “Do not be afraid, Mary,
          for you have found favor with God.
          Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
          and you shall name him Jesus.
          He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
          and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
          and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
          and of his Kingdom there will be no end.”
          But Mary said to the angel,
          “How can this be,
          since I have no relations with a man?”
          And the angel said to her in reply,
          “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
          and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
          Therefore the child to be born
          will be called holy, the Son of God.
          And behold, Elizabeth, your relative,
          has also conceived a son in her old age,
          and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;
          for nothing will be impossible for God.”
          Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
          May it be done to me according to your word.”
          Then the angel departed from her.

          The post Learning from Immaculate Mary How To Live According to Our Identity, Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

          29 min
        • The Marian Dimension of Priestly Life and Mission, Day of Recollection for the Seminarians at St. Joseph’s Seminary (Dunwoodie), Yonkers, NY, December 8, 2025

          Msgr. Roger J. Landry

          St. Joseph’s Seminary, Yonkers, New York
          Advent Day of Recollection
          “Immaculate Mary in the Life and the Mission of Priests”
          December 8, 2025

          https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.8.25_Dunwoodie_Marian_dimension_of_Priestly_Life_and_Mission_1.mp3

          The post The Marian Dimension of Priestly Life and Mission, Day of Recollection for the Seminarians at St. Joseph’s Seminary (Dunwoodie), Yonkers, NY, December 8, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

          1 hr 8 min
        • Building Our Life, Like Mary, on the Rock of God and His Word, First Thursday of Advent, December 4, 2025

          Msgr. Roger J. Landry

          Cesi Chapel, St. Mary Major Basilica, Rome
          Pilgrimage for the Acton Institute
          Thursday of the First Week of Advent
          Memorial of St. John Damascene
          December 4, 2025
          Is 26:1-6, Ps 118, Mt 7:21.24-27

           

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

          https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.4.25_Homily_at_St._Mary_Major_1.mp3

           

          The following points were attempted in the homily: 

          • Throughout the Advent Season, we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus,” “O Come, Divine Messiah!,” “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” and these are all good aspirations, but the Church, which selects the Gospel passages throughout this first week of Advent very well to help us learn the proper dispositions to enter into the meaning of this season and get off to a good start in this new liturgical year, helps us to grasp that it’s by no means enough for us to stop there. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says to us very clearly, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” It’s not enough for us to bid the Lord to come, but we need to build our life on him as he comes. As we run out to meet him who’s coming to us in history, mystery and majesty, as we live the pilgrimage of human and Christian life, he wants to transform us so that we build our whole life on him, as we seek to live totally together with him. “The Lord is an eternal Rock,” Isaiah tells us today. The Psalm adds, “The Lord is God and he has given us light.” The Lord is the solid, stable, unchanging foundation for life, the God who not only is “Light from Light,” but shares that light with us so that we may walk as children of light. Isaiah will tell us on Christmas night that the “people walking in darkness have seen a great light,” and that light is the Lord. Our Advent construction project is to build our life on that rock.
          • Jesus gives us an image today, taken from his conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, about how we’re supposed to live what he teaches. “Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.  The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house.  But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock.” That’s what our response is supposed to be to Jesus’ triple coming: to build our life on his taking on our humanity so that we may share in his divinity; to construct our existence on Him in the present, in his Word and in especially in the Word-made-flesh as the source and summit, the root and center of Christian life; and to ground our hopes, aspirations and daily choices in the guarantee of his second coming and to live, as we’re reminded to live each Advent, vigilant and alert each day for his return. Not everyone lives this way. Many are foolish. Many of us are foolish, because we hear his Word, we may even be able to cite chapter and verse, but we don’t always act on it. Jesus says, “Everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined.” The true Advent response is Mary’s, which we ponder in a particular way here at the most famous Basilica in the world dedicated to her, St. Mary Major, before the image of Our Lady, Salus Populi Romani. We know that  in response to the Archangel Gabriel’s greeting, Mary said, “Behold I am the Lord’s servant. Let it be done to me according to your Word!” She shows us how to build long for God’s word, to build our life on God’s word and to share God’s word.
          • To build our whole existence on Jesus requires great trust, because Jesus’ words are different than the world’s. It’s challenging to build our life on the word of forgiving seventy times seven times, to love our enemies, to love others as God infinitely loves us. It’s hard to build our life on the commandments, the corporal and spiritual works of mercy and especially the Beatitudes which began the Sermon on the Mount. Whereas the world thinks we need to be rich to be fulfilled, Jesus says we need to be poor; whereas the world says we have to be popular and congenial, Jesus says we need to be persecuted for his sake; whereas the world says we need to be powerful, Jesus says we need to be meek peacemakers; whereas the world says we need to have all our sexual fantasies fulfilled, Jesus responds we need to be pure of heart; whereas the world says we need to have all our appetites satiated, Jesus says we need to hunger and thirst for holiness. We’re tempted to construct our life on what everyone else is doing, or on our whims, or to maximize our pleasure and minimize our pain. It’s hard to build on Jesus when he challenges us to trust. But hard is not impossible. And God gives us himself to make the difficulty lighter and sweeter. God encourages us to do so today. “Trust in the Lord forever!,” God calls us through Isaiah. “A strong city have we; he sets up walls and ramparts to protect us.” The Psalm says, “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.” This is true and Advent is a season for us to act on it. This is what Mary is praying for us to be strengthened in during our pilgrimage here to the Basilica today within our pilgrimage to Rome.
          • God gives us a daily opportunity to build ourselves on him at the Mass. In the Liturgy of the Word, God wants us to ground ourselves anew on the rock of God’s word, provided that we try to live the word we hear rather than merely say in response to it “Thanks be to God” and “Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.” We’re called, like Mary, to respond, “Let it be done to me according to your word!” Then we come to the Liturgy of the Eucharist and have the chance to construct our life on this gift, on Christ himself. Then we have the chance, in communion with him, to build our life on the words of his great commission, to go in peace, glorifying the Lord with our life. May we respond to this great privilege and build ourselves firmly on Christ with trust so that no matter what storms come, we will be set firmly on Christ and come to experience eternal tranquility in the house that God has built in heaven for all his beloved children.

            •  

            The readings for today’s Mass were: 

            Reading 1 IS 26:1-6
            On that day they will sing this song in the land of Judah:
            “A strong city have we;
            he sets up walls and ramparts to protect us.
            Open up the gates
            to let in a nation that is just,
            one that keeps faith.
            A nation of firm purpose you keep in peace;
            in peace, for its trust in you.”
            Trust in the LORD forever!
            For the LORD is an eternal Rock.
            He humbles those in high places,
            and the lofty city he brings down;
            He tumbles it to the ground,
            levels it with the dust.
            It is trampled underfoot by the needy,
            by the footsteps of the poor.
            Responsorial Psalm PS 118:1 AND 8-9, 19-21, 25-27A
            R. (26a) Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
            or:
            R. Alleluia.
            Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
            for his mercy endures forever.
            It is better to take refuge in the LORD
            than to trust in man.
            It is better to take refuge in the LORD
            than to trust in princes.
            R. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
            or:
            R. Alleluia.
            Open to me the gates of justice;
            I will enter them and give thanks to the LORD.
            This gate is the LORD’s;
            the just shall enter it.
            I will give thanks to you, for you have answered me
            and have been my savior.
            R. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
            or:
            R. Alleluia.
            O LORD, grant salvation!
            O LORD, grant prosperity!
            Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD;
            we bless you from the house of the LORD.
            The LORD is God, and he has given us light.
            R. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
            or:
            R. Alleluia.

            Alleluia IS 55:6

            R. Alleluia, alleluia.

            Seek the LORD while he may be found;
            call him while he is near.
            R. Alleluia, alleluia.

            Gospel MT 7:21, 24-27
            Jesus said to his disciples:
            “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’
            will enter the Kingdom of heaven,
            but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
            “Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them
            will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.
            The rain fell, the floods came,
            and the winds blew and buffeted the house.
            But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock.
            And everyone who listens to these words of mine
            but does not act on them
            will be like a fool who built his house on sand.
            The rain fell, the floods came,
            and the winds blew and buffeted the house.
            And it collapsed and was completely ruined.”

            The post Building Our Life, Like Mary, on the Rock of God and His Word, First Thursday of Advent, December 4, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

            22 min
          • The Advent of the One Who Throws Three Great Feasts, First Wednesday of Advent, December 3, 2025

            Msgr. Roger J. Landry

            Hungarian Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican
            Pilgrimage for the Acton Institute
            Wednesday of the First Week of Advent
            Memorial of St. Francis Xavier
            December 3, 2025
            Is 25:6-10, Ps 23, Mt 15:29-37

             

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

            https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.3.25_Homily_at_St._Peters_Basilica_1.mp3

             

            The outline for the homily was: 

            • Isaiah’s prophecy of the banquet and the three fulfillments in each of the Advents of Christ: in history (the multiplication of the loaves and fish), in mystery (the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist) and in majesty (the eternal wedding feast).
            • Three figures who helped people to recognize and come to these banquets: St. Peter, St. Francis Xavier, Venerable Cardinal François Van Thuan
            • Preparing to greet and receive the Lord to whom we looked to save us and commit ourselves to bringing others to receive him too.
              • Reading 1
              Isaiah 25:6-10a

              On this mountain the LORD of hosts

              will provide for all peoples
              A feast of rich food and choice wines,
              juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.
              On this mountain he will destroy
              the veil that veils all peoples,
              The web that is woven over all nations;
              he will destroy death forever.
              The Lord GOD will wipe away
              the tears from all faces;
              The reproach of his people he will remove
              from the whole earth; for the LORD has spoken.

              On that day it will be said:

              “Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us!
              This is the LORD for whom we looked;
              let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!”
              For the hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain.

              Responsorial Psalm
              Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6

              R. (6cd) I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.

              The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
              In verdant pastures he gives me repose;
              Beside restful waters he leads me;
              he refreshes my soul.
              R. I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
              He guides me in right paths
              for his name’s sake.
              Even though I walk in the dark valley
              I fear no evil; for you are at my side
              With your rod and your staff
              that give me courage.
              R. I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
              You spread the table before me
              in the sight of my foes;
              You anoint my head with oil;
              my cup overflows.
              R. I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
              Only goodness and kindness follow me
              all the days of my life;
              And I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
              for years to come.
              R. I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.

              Alleluia

              R. Alleluia, alleluia.

              Behold, the Lord comes to save his people;
              blessed are those prepared to meet him.
              R. Alleluia, alleluia.

              Gospel
              Matthew 15:29-37

              At that time:

              Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee,
              went up on the mountain, and sat down there.
              Great crowds came to him,
              having with them the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute,
              and many others.
              They placed them at his feet, and he cured them.
              The crowds were amazed when they saw the mute speaking,
              the deformed made whole,
              the lame walking,
              and the blind able to see,
              and they glorified the God of Israel.

              Jesus summoned his disciples and said,

              “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd,
              for they have been with me now for three days
              and have nothing to eat.
              I do not want to send them away hungry,
              for fear they may collapse on the way.”
              The disciples said to him,
              “Where could we ever get enough bread in this deserted place
              to satisfy such a crowd?”
              Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?”
              “Seven,” they replied, “and a few fish.”
              He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground.
              Then he took the seven loaves and the fish,
              gave thanks, broke the loaves,
              and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds.
              They all ate and were satisfied.
              They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets full.

              The post The Advent of the One Who Throws Three Great Feasts, First Wednesday of Advent, December 3, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

              21 min
            • Daily Reflection for the Pontifical Mission Societies, December 3, 2025

              Msgr. Roger J. Landry

              National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
              Daily Reflection for December 3, 2025

              Here is the video of today’s reflection.

              The Youtube generated transcript for today’s reflection is:

              I’m Monsignor Roger Landry, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies. It’s Wednesday, December 3rd, the feast of the patron of the mission, St. Francis Xavier, and I’m coming to you from the beautiful campus of the Augustine Institute in St. Louis. Today in the Gospel, we see the real essence of Advent. Jesus’s heart is bursting with pity for the crowds. And so, what did he do? He taught them. He healed them as we see in the gospel that there were many who were blind, deaf, mute, crippled, lame and Jesus touched them and healed them all. And then he looked at all those he had been teaching for a while and said they had to be hungry. So he started with whatever raw materials that people had and then he worked the extraordinary multiplication of the loaves and fish in order to feed them all to satiation. Jesus looks at our deepest hungers and he wants to feed them. Not just the material hunger for food, but the far more fundamental spiritual hunger for him who is the living bread come down from heaven. And on this fourth day of Advent, the church wants us focusing on that hunger and the way that the Lord out of mercy seeks to fulfill those hungers. Somebody who got this lesson first as a disciple and then one of the greatest apostles in the history of the church is St. Francis Xavier, the great Spanish Jesuit missionary whom the church remembers today. St. Francis Xavier was full of zeal. He was the roommate of St. Ignatius at the University of Paris. And then he joined the original company then society of Jesus the Jesuits. One day when he was in Rome, somebody who was supposed to go to India on mission was sick. And so Ignatius turned to his friend and former roomie Francis Xavier and said, “Would you go in his place?” And promptly Francis Xavier said, “Of course I will.” And so off he went. And he worked in India to bring so many to Jesus and then to what we would call modern day Malaysia to bring so many to Jesus. And then Japan to bring so many to Jesus. informed them in the faith so well that even though they were absent priests for over 150 years, they still remember the lessons that St. Francis Xavier and his first companions originally imparted. And then he died trying to bring Jesus to a whole fourth country, the country of China. Imagine what would have happened had he been that successful. St. Francis Xavier was one who prioritized what Christ himself desired. If God cared about us so much that he took on our humanity and entered the world in that first advent in Bethlehem, if he loves us even more that he makes himself our food and in a uh in a fulfillment of the foretaste in today’s gospel, feeds the great multitudes across time with himself as the living bread come down from heaven, then he wants the whole world to be able to have that nourishment. And likewise, if he’s going to be coming in the final advent on the clouds of the end of time to judge the living and the dead, he wants us all to be ready. That’s the great work of the church. St. Francis Xavier wasn’t supposed to be a one-man show bringing the gospel everywhere. But he loved the Lord enough to do it. He wrote a letter that the church pers in the office of readings today where he wanted to go back to the University of Paris and scream at the top of his lungs to the very bright students there. Would that your charity matched your learning? Do you have any idea how many people are dying without friendship with Jesus because of you? Because you’re not taking this seriously because you’re not dedicating enough time to it. You’re not dedicating your resource. You’re not dedicating your prayer. Today on this feast of St. Francis Xavier. It’s a time for the church throughout the world to get Advent right to recognize Jesus coming and that the work of the church starting from ourselves but then extending everywhere is to try to run out collectively to meet him with the love with which he comes. St. Francis Xavier, pray for us.

               

              Gospel
              Matthew 15:29-37

              At that time:

              Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee,
              went up on the mountain, and sat down there.
              Great crowds came to him,
              having with them the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute,
              and many others.
              They placed them at his feet, and he cured them.
              The crowds were amazed when they saw the mute speaking,
              the deformed made whole,
              the lame walking,
              and the blind able to see,
              and they glorified the God of Israel.

              Jesus summoned his disciples and said,

              “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd,
              for they have been with me now for three days
              and have nothing to eat.
              I do not want to send them away hungry,
              for fear they may collapse on the way.”
              The disciples said to him,
              “Where could we ever get enough bread in this deserted place
              to satisfy such a crowd?”
              Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?”
              “Seven,” they replied, “and a few fish.”
              He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground.
              Then he took the seven loaves and the fish,
              gave thanks, broke the loaves,
              and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds.
              They all ate and were satisfied.
              They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets full.

               

              The post Daily Reflection for the Pontifical Mission Societies, December 3, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

              4 min
            • Daily Reflection for the Pontifical Mission Societies, December 2, 2025

              Msgr. Roger J. Landry

              National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
              Daily Reflection for December 2, 2025

              Here is the video of today’s reflection.

              The Youtube generated transcript for today’s reflection is:

              I’m Monsignor Roger Landry, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies. It’s Tuesday, December 2nd. I’m coming to you from the campus of the Augustine Institute in St. Louis, a great house of formation so that everybody is able to grow in faith in the capacity to be able to share our faith.

              In the Gospel today, on this third day of Advent, we see how we’re supposed to live Advent ultimately with a real childlike spirit. The type of childlike spirit we had as kids as we were waiting for Christmas. For those of us who were raised in the faith, Jesus says, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for what you’ve hidden from the wise and the clever of the world. You’ve revealed to the childlike. Yes, Father, such was your gracious will.” And then Jesus said, “All things have been handed over to me by my father. No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” And we know that for all those who are childlike, for those who have never lost their sense of wonder, for the for the answers to the question why why why why why why the ultimate why is because God loved us enough to create the world.

              But it’s only the childlike, those who are not self-sufficient who are going to be able really to approach this reality as it’s meant to be received. Jesus desires that all of us receive the revelation of the father’s love. He’s the incarnation of that revelation and he wants us to grow in not only our relationship with the father through him by the power of the Holy Spirit but to help many others come to that same realization. At the end of today’s passage, Jesus says, “How many people long to see what you see but didn’t see it or to hear what you hear but didn’t hear it.” Do we realize how lucky we are?

              In this Advent season, we remember that Jesus came into the world not just for us. He came into the world for everyone. And his plan was not just to save us on the outside and save everybody all by himself, but he wanted to include us in his plan of salvation. He wanted each of us to long to come to him with that childlike simplicity to have a real deep hunger and then to facilitate everybody else’s similar journey. As we look at Jesus coming in time in Bethlehem, we’re called to try to bring all the nations to adore him. Just like the magi coming from afar. As we look at Jesus in prayer in the sacraments, we’re supposed to lead everybody by witness to this extraordinary gift among us that God with us is still very much with us. And as we look forward to Jesus coming at the end of time, Jesus wants us to be ready and to help everybody to get ready with eager longing for the Lord’s appearance so that we together with everyone might be able to see with our eyes and hear what our hear with our ears the full revelation Jesus comes in this three-fold way to give us as we pray for the church throughout the world and particularly all missionaries in this third day of advent. Let’s say together, “Come, Lord Jesus.” Recognizing that we’re supposed to go to him and that the work of the church is to bring the whole church on pilgrimage. God bless you.

               

              Gospel
              Luke 10:21-24

              Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said,

              “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
              for although you have hidden these things
              from the wise and the learned
              you have revealed them to the childlike.
              Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.
              All things have been handed over to me by my Father.
              No one knows who the Son is except the Father,
              and who the Father is except the Son
              and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”

              Turning to the disciples in private he said,

              “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.
              For I say to you,
              many prophets and kings desired to see what you see,
              but did not see it,
              and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.”

               

              The post Daily Reflection for the Pontifical Mission Societies, December 2, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

              4 min

            About Catholic Preaching

            From the publisher's feed

            Father Roger J. Landry is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, who works for the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations in New York.

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