Fr. Roger J. Landry

Retreat for the Carmelite Monastery of Our Mother of Mercy and Saint Joseph

Alexandria, South Dakota

March 1-8, 2022

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.7.22_Conference_12_Good_Shepherd_Suffering_Servant_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Carmelite Monastery of Our Mother of Mercy and Saint Joseph

Alexandria, South Dakota

Monday of the First Week of Lent, Extraordinary Form

March 7, 2022

Ez 34:11-16, Mt 25:31-46

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.7.22_EF_Mass_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* The ultimate purpose of Lent is conversion, turning away from sin, turning toward God, and ultimately and literally turning with him. It’s to be restored in the image and likeness of God, to receive more fruitfully God’s love and help to become holy as he is holy, merciful as he is merciful, and striving to love others as he has loved us first.

* In today’s first reading from the Prophet Ezekiel, we see how God loves. He loves us as a shepherd loves his sheep. He looks after us, tends us, protects us, seeks us out, gathers us and brings us back, leads us out among the people, rescues us, binds our wounds, heals our illnesses, pastures us in rich pastures, gives us rest, and shepherds us rightly. Jesus would at last put a human and divine face to this prophetic description, as he identified himself as the Good Shepherd and showed his care to know his sheep, call each of them by name with his trustworthy, recognizable voice, walk ahead of them so that they might follow him, leave the 99 to go out after the lost, give them eternal life so that they may never perish, and ultimately lay down his life for them.

* The first thing we need to do in Lent and in life is to allow Jesus, the Good Shepherd, to shepherd us, to hear his voice, to follow him, to graze in the pastures to which he leads us. But he also seeks to make us shepherds after his own heart, to assist him in his shepherdly care, to take responsibility for others and share in his feeding, guiding and protecting of others. We see this transformation clearly in the life of St. Peter. After the Resurrection, when Jesus appeared to the disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus asked Peter three times: “Simon, Son of John, do you love me more than these?” After each of the three times Peter responded, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you,” Jesus gave him a commission: “Feed my lambs,” telling him in particular to take care of his young people; “Tend my sheep,” which in the Greek means to guard and guide; and “Feed my sheep.” Jesus, the Good Shepherd, was entrusting the care and nourishment of his flock, young and old, to Peter’s loving solicitude. They would always remain Christ’s sheep — feed mylambs, tend mysheep, Jesus said — but they would be guided by a sheep like themselves, chosen, formed and commissioned. While there is obviously unique aspect to the shepherdly vocation of Peter and his successors, each of us, in having been called to love others as Christ has loved us first, is called to shepherd others as Christ has shepherded us first.

* That brings us to today’s powerful Gospel in which the Good Shepherd makes plain the type of shepherdly care he expects. He tells us that at the General Judgment, he will be like a shepherd separating sheep from goats. Those who have proven to be his good sheep, he will place on his right, and those who have been goats — confused often with sheep at first glance but who have hair instead of wool, tails that point down instead of up, who browse instead of graze, who like to do their own thing rather than stick together, and who have 60 chromosomes instead of 54 — on his left. The sheep will have distinguished themselves by how they shepherded with love those in need, when they found someone hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick or imprisoned. The goats, Jesus says in the image, will be those who did nothing.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Retreat for the Carmelite Monastery of Our Mother of Mercy and Saint Joseph

Alexandria, South Dakota

March 1-8, 2022

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.6.22_Conference_11_2.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Retreat for the Carmelite Monastery of Our Mother of Mercy and Saint Joseph

Alexandria, South Dakota

March 1-8, 2022

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.6.22_Confeence_10_Elisha_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Carmelite Monastery of Our Mother of Mercy and Saint Joseph

Alexandria, South Dakota

First Sunday of Lent, Extraordinary Form

March 6, 2022

2 Cor 6:1-10, Mt 4:1-11

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.6.22_EF_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* Most people have no desire at all to go to the desert, certainly for no more than a brief visit. At a spiritual level, however, we should always have a great love for the desert, because the desert is what helps us to understand the 40-day pilgrimage of Lent, in which we join and imitate Jesus in the desert and ponder the fruits of what he learned and experienced there upon his return. Every Lent, the same Holy Spirit whom St. Luke tells us led Jesus into the desert wants to guide us into the desert with him. Lent is meant to help us recapitulate Christ’s 40 days away from everything so that we, apart from ordinary distractions, can focus on who we are, on our relationship with God and others and, with Christ’s help, can confront and overcome the way that the devil seeks to distort those relations and that image. It’s a time for us to make sure, as St. Paul reminds us today in the Epistle, that we’re not receiving the grace of God in vain. It’s an opportunity for us, like St. Paul, to examine whether any “fault may be found with our ministry” or life, whether we’re commending ourselves as believers and ministers of God through endurance, afflictions, hardships, labors, vigils, fasts, in purity, patience, knowledge, unfeigned love, truthful speech and the power of God, or whether we’re causing others to stumble. It’s an occasion for us to recognize, as he reminds us, that “Now is the day of salvation,” now is the much awaited and joyful time of our rescue and liberation. The first temptation we face each Lent is to refuse to go into the state of the desert with Christ, to think that our Lent can be complete if, for example, all we do is give up certain things or pray the Stations of the Cross on Friday. The first big hurdle is for us to hear Christ’s voice from the desert saying, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while” (Mk 6:31).

* Today’s Gospel scene is particularly special, because the only way St. Matthew and St. Luke and we would have known about it would have been if Christ had told it to his disciples himself. No one else was there. The Lord must have opened up his heart to them about this seminal moment in his hidden life, which occurred immediately after he was baptized in the Jordan by John the Baptist (Mk 1:12). The Holy Spirit led him into the huge fifteen-by-thirty-five mile expanse between the mountain of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea so that he could pray to the Father about the public ministry that he was about to commence. He prayed and fasted for forty days, which obviously would have left him physically weakened. It was at this moment of fatigue that the Devil came to him to tempt him. Much like God the Father had once allowed Job to be tested, the same Father allowed his Son to be tempted. In the temptations Jesus suffered and later described to his disciples, the devil brought out in a pristine form the types of temptation that Christ would undergo in his public ministry and that each of us undergoes in our lives. By focusing on how Christ responded, we, too, can learn how to receive his mercy and help so that we might be able to react as Jesus did.

* The first temptation was aimed right at Jesus’ tremendous hunger after 40 days of eating nothing or barely anything: “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of Bread.” When the Israelites were in the desert,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Retreat for the Carmelite Monastery of Our Mother of Mercy and Saint Joseph

Alexandria, South Dakota

March 1-8, 2022

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.5.22_Conference_9_Elijah_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Retreat for the Carmelite Monastery of Our Mother of Mercy and Saint Joseph

Alexandria, South Dakota

March 1-8, 2022

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.5.22_Conference_8_Todah_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Carmelite Monastery of Our Mother of Mercy and Saint Joseph

Alexandria, South Dakota

Saturday after Ash Wednesday, Extraordinary Form

March 5, 2022

Is 58:9-14, Ps 27:4, Mk 6:47-56

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.5.22_EF_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* “One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek,” we pray in today’s gradual with insistence for the second day in a row: “To dwell in the Lord’s house all the days of my life, To gaze on the Lord’s beauty, to visit his temple.” The deepest desire God has implanted within us is to be with him. Not just to know him. Not just to pay him a visit. But to live together with him in him, to abide in a deep communion of love and life with him, all the days of our life, to gaze on his beauty, to bask in the beauty of his own gaze.

* This prayer comes in the midst of Psalm 27, in which the context is evildoers coming at us to devour flesh, armies encamping against us, wars being waged against us, malicious and lying witnesses rising all around us, family members turning on us, with enemies on every side. In response to it all, we cry out that the Lord is our light, our salvation, and our life’s refuge. We proclaim we don’t have to fear anyone or anything. In the midst of it all, we say, we recognize we can be dwelling with the Lord, not as a means of escape, but precisely to help us in the midst of it all to be courageous and stouthearted, full of trust, in God our Savior. We seek to abide in him, we seek his face, we seek the goodness of the Lord not just later but in the land of the living now, because we know that when we are with him, who is our light, salvation and refuge, we are already experiencing that goodness. We know that even in the midst of darkness, his light shines; even in the midst of danger, his salvation extended and refuge bestowed.

* But this is a truth that God fortifies by experience, because even though we can pray and mean the words of the Psalm, when we are in difficult circumstances our trust can wane and our fears can grow. That’s why God often puts us in circumstances where we cannot but confront our fears and be given the chance to entrust ourselves to him. That’s what happens in the dramatic scene in today’s Gospel, the main elements of which are recapitulated in some way or another in the life of every disciple. Immediately before this scene was the multiplication of the loaves and fish and St. Mark tells us that Jesus had everyone sit down on the green grass, which means that it must have taken place in mid-March to mid-April in the Holy Land, because the grass begins to get scorched by the sun by the end of April. That would mean sunset would have happened about 6 pm, which is the time the apostles got into the boat to begin the journey across the top of the Sea of Galilee, a 5-6 mile trek that should have taken a few hours. The storm began to rage when they were in the middle of the Sea, so about an hour or two along their trek. Jesus came to them in the “fourth watch of the night” — the period stretching from 3-6 am — which meant that by that point, they had been in the boat 9-12 hours, battling a ferocious storm, fatigued, soaking wet and fearing for their life. Jesus was placidly praying on the mountain as they were struggling for hours not to drown to death. Why did Jesus wait so long as his friends were in peril? This scene recalls the other time that they were afraid for their life on the Sea, when Jesus was asleep in the bow of the boat as they thought they were about to perish. In both cases, it was to increase their faith. Jesus was introducing them to a central truth of the spiritual life: that in order to be able to abandon...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the First Sunday of Lent, C, Vigil

March 5, 2022

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.5.22_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation Jesus wants to have with us in this Sunday’s Gospel, as we journey with Jesus into the desert at the beginning of the Lenten Season.

* Most people have no desire at all to go to the desert, certainly for no more than a brief visit. At a spiritual level, however, we should always have a great love for the desert, because the desert is what helps us to understand the 40-day pilgrimage of Lent, in which we join and imitate Jesus there and ponder the fruits of what he did. Every Lent, the same Holy Spirit whom St. Luke tells us led Jesus into the desert wants to guide us into the desert with him. Lent is meant to help us recapitulate Christ’s 40 days away from everything so that we, apart from distractions, can focus on who we are, on our relationship with God and others and, with Christ’s help, can confront and overcome the way that the devil seeks to distort those relations and that image.

* To go into the desert, however, is increasingly difficult for people today. We’re so connected that if we are out of cell phone range we can easily feel totally lost. While the Lord is not calling us all physically to go to the Arabah, he is calling us to the state of the desert, removing ourselves as much as we can from distractions, from the television, computer, radio, newspaper, and the various things that may be fine in themselves but crowd our lives with noise so that we can’t hear God and with clutter so that we can’t see God. The first temptation we face each Lent is to refuse to go into the desert with Christ, to think that our Lent can be complete if, for example, all we do is give up booze and sweets. The first big hurdle is for us to hear Christ’s voice from the desert saying, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while” (Mk 6:31).

* The next lesson we need to grasp is what is supposed to be the fruit of that time in the desert, and that leads us to this Sunday’s Gospel. It’s a particularly special scene, because the only way St. Luke and St. Matthew would have known about it would have been if Christ had told it to his disciples himself. No one else was there. The Lord must have opened up his heart to them about this seminal moment in his hidden life, which occurred immediately after he was baptized in the Jordan by John the Baptist (Mk 1:12). The Holy Spirit led him into the huge fifteen-by-thirty-five mile desert between the mountain of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea so that he could pray to the Father about the public ministry that he was about to commence. He prayed and fasted for an incredible forty days, which obviously would have left him physically weak and famished. It was at this moment of physical weakness that the Devil came to him to tempt him. Much like God the Father had once allowed Job to be tested, the same Father allowed Jesus his Son to be tempted. In the temptations Jesus suffered and later described to his disciples, the devil brought out in a pristine form the types of temptation that Christ would undergo in his public ministry and that each of us undergoes in our lives. By focusing on how Christ responded, we, too, can learn how to receive his mercy so that we might be able to react as Jesus did.

* The first temptation was aimed right at Jesus’ tremendous hunger after 40 days of eating not...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Retreat for the Carmelite Monastery of Our Mother of Mercy and Saint Joseph

Alexandria, South Dakota

March 1-8, 2022

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.4.22_Conference_7_Burning_Bush_Rock_1.mp3