Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Monday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

February 7, 2022

1 Kings 8:1-7.9-13, Ps 132, Mk 6:53-56

 

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

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The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* We encounter in the first reading today one of the most important scenes in the Old Testament, which has enormous significance for us as Christians for us to grasp one of the most essential lessons in Christian life. We read about the inauguration of the Temple of Jerusalem by King Solomon. His father David had wanted to build a house for the Lord but was stopped by the Lord himself who rather wanted to build a house for David (which he fulfilled ultimately in the incarnation of David’s 28th generation grandson according to the flesh and God’s only begotten Son generated before the foundation of the world). David, however, prepared most of what was needed for his son Solomon to build the Temple after David’s death. Four years into his reign as king, when he was 22, Solomon began the building of the Temple. It took seven years to complete the edifice and another few years to do the decorations and get everything else ready. But, finally, after all of that preparation and hard work, they were ready to dedicate it. At the inauguration, they sacrificed “too many sheep and oxen to count.” The priests brought the Ark of the Covenant containing within the tablets of the Ten Commandments into the Holy of Holies and placed them underneath the sculpted wings of the cherubim. But then the most important thing happened: God came. He came in the form of a cloud (shekinah in Hebrew), just like he used to appear to the Israelites in the desert during the exodus. “The cloud filled the temple of the Lord,” the sacred author writes, “since the Lord’s glory had filled the temple of the Lord.” It’s often said that religion is man’s search for God, which is true to a point, but what’s distinctive about the history of salvation is that it details God’s search for man. Pope Francis talks about the mystery of primerear, that God always precedes us; we’re searching for him but when we find him, we discover that he was there waiting for us first. In the cloud signifying God’s holy presence, God came to encounter his people. He wanted to have a stable place by which he could meet them, guide them, help them and change them. The most important thing about the temple was the presence of God, God’s self-manifestation. It wasn’t how many sacrifices were made there on the part of man to God. The essential is that God was there to meet man.

* Eight years ago, Pope Francis gave in the Vatican some beautiful thoughts on this first reading, linking God’s theophany in the Temple that day to what we are privileged to experience in the incarnate theophany of Jesus in the Eucharist. He first stressed that in the celebration of the Mass something happens that is far more significant that all of our other prayers, from our personal prayers, our meditation on the Rosary, our reenactments of Biblical events that take place in Christmas Pageants, Passion Plays, Stations of the Cross and the like. The main point is not what we do — just as the main point about the Temple in Jerusalem was not the innumerable body count of animals sacrificed — but the fact that God comes to meet us, and in the Mass he meets us in a way far more significant than he met the Jews in the cloud. Pope Francis said, “The Lord speaks to His people in many ways: through the prophets, the priests, the Sacred Scriptures. But with theophanies, He speaks in another way. … He speaks with his presence. This is what happens in the liturgical celebration.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

February 6, 2022

Is 6:1-8, Ps 138, 1 Cor 15:1-11, Lk 5:1-11

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.6.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* Today we have three vocation stories — Simon Peter’s, Isaiah’s and Paul’s — all of which teach us something about our own vocation to be faithful disciples and ardent apostles and which provide us, today, a chance to to renew our commitment to that calling and mission.

* Early one morning, Jesus was at the shore of the Sea of Galilee, teaching. As more people began to awaken and come down to the shore, the crowd listening to Jesus grew. As Jesus was being crushed by the crowds, he gently hijacked Simon’s cleaned boat so that he might sit a little bit away from the shore to teach. With the wind coming over his shoulder as a natural amplifier, Jesus nourished the famished crowd with his words. But it was no coincidence that Jesus was there that morning. It was no coincidence that he asked to borrow Simon’s boat. Jesus had come to do more than teach the crowd. He had come to catch a big fish. He had come to convert and call Simon.

* After Jesus had finished speaking, he said to Simon Peter, “Put out into the deep water and lower your nets for a catch!” Few statements could have sounded more ridiculous to a fisherman. Simon must have had to control himself from saying something unkind. He was a professional on the Sea of Galilee, and like all the other fishermen, he knew that fish were successfully caught in shallow water at night, not in deep water in broad daylight. It would be as if a fisherman had told Jesus, a carpenter, to drive in nails by holding the head of the hammer and striking with the handle. It made no sense. Moreover, Peter was tired after a long night. He was frustrated that he had nothing to show for hours of hard work. He had just spent time cleaning all of his equipment, to put everything away for the day. So in what was probably the nicest way he could, he replied, “Master, we have worked all night but have caught nothing.” He likely looked silently into Jesus’ eyes for understanding. But Jesus didn’t flinch. He looked at Peter intensely without saying a word. What was going on in Peter’s mind? “No one had ever spoken like this one,” Peter might have been whispering to himself: “Is it possible that he might know something I don’t about fishing? Probably not, although how can I refuse what he asks for and embarrass him and embarrass myself in front of this entire crowd?” Peter finally gave in. “At your word,” he told Jesus, “I will let down the nets.” They got into the boat again and paddled far away from shore to the deep water. Probably many of those who had listened to Jesus were watching to see how the drama would unfold.

* We know what happened. Peter and his companions won the fisherman’s equivalent of the megabucks, catching so many fish that their nets were about to break and two boats were about to sink. Peter couldn’t help but think, however, that he was unworthy of such a gift from God. Rather than run to Jesus, hug him and thank him, he fell down at Jesus’ knees and begged, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” He was afraid of what this blessing to such a sinner might mean. Jesus spoke right to Peter’s heart and said, “Do not be afraid!” Then he gave Peter his vocation: “From now on, you will be catching men!” When they had brought their boats to shore, Peter and Andrew, James and John, left everything behind — their fishing vessels, their nets, the treasure they had just caught — and followed Jesus. And they went out on a worldwide fishing expedi...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. Agnes Church, Manhattan

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

February 6, 2022

Col 3:12-17, Mt 13:24-30

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.6.22_EF_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* Today’s Gospel is I think one of the most important for Christians to live faithfully, joyfully and well at a time in which there’s much legitimately to be concerned about. In society, there are many who are trying to force lots of things contrary to the Christian faith upon believers. Within the Church, we’ve seen in just the last week prominent European prelates giving interviews in which they’re advocating for major changes to the Christian deposit of faith, like somehow magically overturning  Scripture and tradition on the immorality of same-sex sexual activity, or to Christian discipline, like calling for an end to the practice of chaste celibacy in the clergy simply because it’s hard. Those who love the traditional Latin Mass are understandably troubled by what seems to be some Church officials’ hostility toward the devout and reverent use of the 1962 Missal while the same officials simultaneously say and do nothing whatsoever about liturgical abuses in the 1970 Missal that can border on mockery of the Mass. Many are tempted to spend their energy, attention, resources and even lives to try to slam on the brakes with regard to trends that can’t but be seen as negative by the light of faith, as several talented Catholics do on the internet, criticizing, often caustically, one person or things after another. But that’s why what Jesus teaches us in the Gospel is so important. That’s why we have to pay really close attention and put what he says into practice, because many otherwise faithful Catholics don’t.

* By means of the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds, Jesus teaches us how to live not just in our time, but in every time, when there are “wheat” and “weeds” growing up together, intertwined in the kingdom. To understand Jesus’ message, we first must grasp the facts that Jesus was presupposing in his moral story. In the Holy Land still today, the wheat and the weeds (called lolium temulentum) to which Jesus was referring still grow. They’re indistinguishable during the early phases of growth and not even expert farmers can tell the difference. When they grow enough to be differentiated, their roots are so intertwined that you can’t take out the weeds without ripping out the wheat by the roots as well. So farmers need to let them grow, harvest them all and then separate them on sifting tables, lest the wheat be contaminated by the toxic fruit of the weeds.

* By this parable Jesus is saying, first, that the same patience and prudence that farmers exercise must be employed with regard to believers in his kingdom. The good seed and the bad seed, the children living according to the kingdom and those living according to other standards, grow up side by side, sometimes in the same field, the same home, the same parish, the same neighborhood. We really can’t tell the difference between them by sight, especially early in life. We can’t judge by present appearances. We need to wait until the end when Jesus himself and his angels will do the separation. This is an important corrective for many faithful people today. Like the zealous servants in the parable, many still think that the Lord wants us urgently to go into the fields out to pull up all the weeds, to find all of the children of the evil one, expose and in some fashion eradicate them, lest they poison the wheat, the children of the kingdom, the innocent. But Jesus, without minimizing the evil being done, without telling us to ignore the evil, is not concerned primarily with the weeds; his...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time, C, Vigil

February 5, 2022

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.5.22_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, when we prayerfully penetrate into the vocational dialogue he had with Saint Peter. This conversation is so pivotal to the Catholic faith that in 2001, when St. John Paul II was giving us his pastoral plan for the Third Christian Millennium, he took the the motto for the thousand year period of Christianity we’ve just begun from Jesus’ words to Peter: “Duc in altum,” Latin for, “Put out into the deep water and lower your nets for a catch!” John Paul II was convinced that these words aptly describe the Church’s situation and what needs to be her response. When we examine this Sunday’s Gospel more closely, we see why.

* Early one morning, Jesus was at the shore of the Sea of Galilee, teaching. As more people began to awaken and come down to the shore, the crowd listening to Jesus grew. Jesus asked Simon Peter to borrow his boat so that he might sit a little bit away from the shore to teach the crowds. With the wind coming over his shoulder as a natural amplifier, Jesus nourished the famished crowd with his words. But it was no coincidence that Jesus was there that morning. It was no coincidence that he asked to borrow Simon’s boat. Jesus had come to do more than teach the crowd. He had come to catch a big fish. He had come to convert and call Simon.

* After Jesus had finished speaking, he said to Simon Peter, “Put out into the deep water and lower your nets for a catch!” Few statements could have sounded more ridiculous to a fisherman. Simon must have had to control himself from saying something unkind. He was a professional on the Sea of Galilee, and like all the other fishermen, he knew that fish were successfully caught in shallow water at night, not in deep water in broad daylight. It would be as if a fisherman had told Jesus, a carpenter, to drive in nails by holding the head of the hammer and striking with the handle. It made no sense. Moreover, Peter was tired after a long night. He was frustrated that he had nothing to show for hours of hard work. He had just spent time cleaning all of his equipment, to put everything away for the day. So in what was probably the nicest way he could, he replied, “Master, we have worked all night but have caught nothing.” He likely looked silently into Jesus’ eyes for understanding. But Jesus didn’t flinch. He looked at Peter intensely without saying a word. What was going on in Peter’s mind? “No one had ever spoken like this one,” Peter might have been whispering to himself: “Is it possible that he might know something I don’t about fishing? Probably not, although how can I refuse what he asks for and embarrass him and embarrass myself in front of this entire crowd?” Peter finally gave in. “At your word,” he told Jesus, “I will let down the nets.” They got into the boat again and paddled far away from shore to the deep water. Probably many of those who had listened to Jesus were watching to see how the drama would unfold. We know what happened. Peter and his companions won the fisherman’s equivalent of the megabucks, catching so many fish that their nets were about to break and two boats were about to sink. Peter couldn’t help but think, however, that he was unworthy of such a gift from God. Rather than run to Jesus,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Friday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

February 4, 2022

Sir 47:2-11, Ps 18, Mk 6:14-29

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.4.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today’s readings and feast focus on courage and its supernatural source.

* In the first reading, we see David’s life summarized: how he audaciously defeated lions, bears and Goliath of Gad, how God had given strength to his right arm, how he subdued the enemy on every side.  In the Gospel, we encounter John the Baptist’s courage in telling Herod and Herodias the uncomfortable but undeniable truth that their pseudo-marriage was offensive in God’s eyes, since it is not right to marry another’s wife, a fortiori one’s sister-in-law and also niece. Underneath that courage was his audacity in the face of the threat of death.

* Where does that courage come from? It comes from God and it is received and acted upon through pious faith. We see David’s faith illuminated in the summary of Sirach. Sirach says, “He called upon the Most High God,” “With his every deed he offered thanks to God Most High, in words of praise.” “With his whole being he loved his Maker and daily had his praises sung.” He was compared to the “choice fat of the sacred offerings” — which if I used that expression about you, you might not think was a compliment, but it was! — in order to stress that, just as the the fat needed to be removed from the inner organs of bulls and oxen when they were being sacrificed to burn on the altar of holocausts, so it is suggested that David, chosen among his brothers, was made especially for the sacrifice of praise to God. Because of his faithful love for God, David had the courage to dance before the ark despite the taunts of his wife and potentially others. He had the courage to play the harp before God, not the most manly of instruments. He had the great courage to repent of his sins and write about it so that we can pray it to this day. He sought not only to battle but to live in the name of the Lord, and when he fell from it and was confronted, he confessed and had the courage to change. Likewise, John the Baptist’s courage came from his faith, from his relationship with the Most High God from the womb. That faith had led him to make straight the paths for the Messiah, to know himself unworthy to loosen his sandal strap, to seek for Jesus to increase and for him to decrease, to give witness to him in the womb, at birth, at the Jordan and even at death.

* The greatest courage of all we see in David’s 28th generation descendent. According to his humanity, Jesus didn’t defeat soldiers by the tens of thousands or wrestle with bears, lions and giants, even though he had the power to calm storms and exorcise demons. He was so courageous, so strong, that when he was being buffeted, he meekly turned the other cheek, prayed for his persecutors, did good to those who hated him, and loved even his enemies, begging his Father to forgive them as they hammered him to the Cross. That same courageous Jesus implants himself in us every Mass, so that we can hear him from the inside saying to us, “Do not be afraid! It is I!” We come here to receive the Lord, our strength, and gradually as we consume him, to become more and more like him whom we eat. Let us ask him as we enter anew into holy Communion with him to give us the courage that comes from him to call always upon, offer thanks and praise the Most High God, love our Maker with our whole being, and give witness to the truth, imitating David and John the Baptist in their faithful love of him and bold witness to the end!

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, New York

Thursday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of St. Blaise Bishop and Martyr

February 3, 2022

1 Kings 2:1-4.10-12, 1 Chr 29:10-12, Mk 6:7-13

 

To listen to today’s homily, please click below:

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.3.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today Jesus gives instructions to the Twelve as he was preparing to send them out to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom. Normally, when we go on a trip, especially if we’re not accustomed to traveling, we prepare a list of the things we need to pack in our suitcase so that we don’t forget anything. Jesus likewise prepares a list for the apostles, but it’s precisely a list of things not to take. He tells them to take nothing except a walking stick (something that would give them greater stamina for the mission), no food, no sack of clothes and toiletries, no money. Why? Because he knew that they needed to preach the Gospel not principally by their words but by their witness, by who they were. If they were going to be preaching that God cares for us more than he cares for the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, then they needed to manifest that trust in his divine Providence. If they were going to be indicating to others the path to happiness, they needed to be living the first beatitude, “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” If they were going to be proclaiming love of neighbor, of forgiving 70 times 7 times, then they really couldn’t go out alone, but rather with at least one other whom they would need to love and forgive. If the essence of the Gospel is to receive Jesus and in receiving him, to receive the Father who sent him, they themselves needed to be willing to be received and not be on the lookout for better offers, hence Jesus’ instruction to remain where they’re welcomed and embraced. If they were going to be proclaiming the call not just to believe in Jesus and enter his kingdom but also to announce it, then they themselves needed to manifest the apostolic dimension of our faith. Jesus sends them out with his words, his authority over demons, his power to heal, to proclaim repentance and conversion, so that people not just hear the message but see it, not just in what the six missionary pairings did but who they were. The same Lord Jesus who sent them out to manifest the Gospel they were proclaiming chooses and sends us out.

* This summons to announce Christ and his Kingdom is supposed to happen not just in the way we live but in the way we die. One of the most important ways we preach is through our valedictory, through our last words, our last will and testament. This is an opportunity to show others, when we’re about to die or soon after, what we truly value and what they wisely should value. Many times when we hear that expression “last will and testament,” we think fundamentally about the disposition of our money and goods, but that just shows the materialism of our age. Our last will should manifest our will to do the Lord’s will and our hope and prayer that others do the Lord’s will. Our last testament should be about the testament or covenant God made with us and we’ve sought to keep with him. Our last will and testament should be an exclamation point on the way we’ve truly tried to live with the Lord, suffer with the Lord, die with the Lord, and even give witness to the Lord after he has called us to Himself.

* That’s what David shows us how to do in today’s first reading. As the time of his death was approaching, he called his 18 year-old son Solomon to him and gave him these instructions, not only as father to son but also as king to successor.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

February 1, 2022

2 Sam 18:9-10.14.24-25.30-19:3, Ps 86, Mk 5:21-43

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.1.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today we encounter several instances of paternal love that can help us to appreciate the love God has for us and the type of love we’re called to have for others.

* In the Gospel, we meet Jairus, the synagogue official who comes to Jesus to beg him to come quickly to heal his 12-year-old daughter who was at the point of death. By this point, Jesus was already persona non grata at the synagogue because he dared to do good and heal on the Lord’s day. For a synagogue official to approach him under any circumstances would have been viewed by many in the synagogue as an act of betrayal, almost consorting with an enemy. Yet Jairus didn’t just approach Jesus, but fell down at his feet and begged him to come to lay his hands on his daughter. So great was the love this dad had for his little girl that he was willing to humiliate himself, if that’s what it took, to try to save his girl’s life. That love was stronger than his reputation, than his desire to maintain his position, than almost everything other thing he valued.

* We see a similar love in the first reading. When David saw the Cushite messenger running alone, he anticipated that it would be good news. The news he wanted was that Absalom’s troops had been defeated but that Absalom was safe. He had instructed his army, “Be gentle with young Absalom for my sake.” When the messenger arrived, however, and told him, “Let my lord the king receive the good news that this day the Lord has taken your part, freeing you from the grasp of all who rebelled against you,” David immediately asked, “Is young Absalom safe?” That was far more important than the details of a victory on the battlefield. When the emissary indicated that he was dead, the King went away from the crowd to weep, crying out, “My son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you, Absalom, my son, my son!” The victory was turned into mourning for everyone as the army saw how much the king was grieving for his son. Why did David mourn so much his son who had been attempting parricide? Because, I believe, he wanted to show him mercy, he wanted to reveal to him the real meaning of paternal love after he had been captured and restored. He never got that chance and Absalom died outside of that relationship.

* Both of these episodes show us what paternal love is and give us an indication of the type of love, the type of weeping, the type of lengths to which God with even greater love acts and weeps for us. David cried out, “If only I had died instead of you, my son!,” and God, through David’s 28th generation grandson according to the flesh, actually did. God so loved the world, he so loved each of us, that he sent his only Son [to die for us] so that we might not perish but might have eternal life. He went so much further than Jairus and David. He gave his Son up to be brutally murdered — yes, he raised him from the dead, but this shouldn’t lessen the sacrifice made — so that we might live. God the Father loves us like the Father of the Prodigal Son; even after we’ve squandered half of his goods, even if we have turned on him like Absalom against David, he wants to show us that he loves us so much more than those goods.

* We see one other example of this fatherhood in the middle of the Gospel. So many of the early great theologians in the Church — especially Saint Melito of Sardis — pondered the paternity of Jesus,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Monday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of St. John Bosco

January 31, 2022

2 Sam 15:13-14.30;16:6-13, Ps 3, Mk 5:1-20

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.31.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today’s Gospel is about more than one more dramatic exorcism from Jesus. It points to something that needs to be exorcised from all of us in every age. After Jesus frees this man from a legion of demons — and a legion in the Roman army was 600 troops — by casting them into a herd of 2,000 pigs who, now possessed, ran off a cliff and drowned in the Sea of Galilee, the people of that pagan region of the Gerasenes didn’t rejoice at the liberation of the man who used to gouge himself with stones, break chains that attempted to bind him, and terrorize the people of the region; they didn’t come to Jesus to ask him likewise to free the other possessed people in the region, or to cure their sick or to teach them; instead, they asked him to leave their region. Jesus was bad for business. They worried that if he stayed he might next endanger their sheep, too, or their grain, or other aspects of their livelihood. They essentially cared more for the swine they had lost than the brother they had gained.

* This is not a problem just for ancients. Still today, people can give possessions primacy over people, allowing people to be disturbed, even possessed, as long as their possessions are left undisturbed. Pope Francis wrote about this in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium: “How can it be that it is not a news item,” he asks, “when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?” For many people, the stock market is more important than people dying through neglect. And this is one of the greatest ways the devil seeks to possess multitudes, through the concupiscence of the eyes or materialism. We remember the way he tried to tempt Jesus in the desert to set his sights on material bread, by turning stones into bread, to become a baker instead of a savior, to focus on his stomach more than his soul, on himself more than God. But Jesus refused, saying we live on more than bread, but by every word that comes from God’s mouth. This is what uniting ourselves to Jesus’ spiritual poverty through the profession of the evangelical counsel of poverty makes possible.

* People are more important than things and we must remember this and live by it. We’re in a culture today in which if a human being is still very much alive but in a persistent vegetative state, many think that we need to let the person die in order to save more money for the care of others. What this really means is to make profits for some by allowing people to die. It’s to put things before love, possessions before people. And when possessions become dominant, we ask Jesus to leave just like the Gerasenes did, because Jesus is constantly telling us to treat the poor the way we would treat him. And if we would ignore a man’s dying of exposure or resent rather than rejoice at a possessed man’s liberation what we’re essentially saying is we don’t care if Jesus were to die of exposure or if Jesus were to be gashing himself with stones — attitudes that already show that we don’t want to have room for Jesus, we really don’t want him to stay.

* We see a similar objective and subjective dehumanization at work in what’s pointed to by today’s first reading. On Saturday, we heard God through Nathan tell King David that the sword would never depart from his house and today we see how David’s son Absalom,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

January 30, 2022

Jer 1:4-5.17-19, Ps 71, 1 Cor 12:31-13:13 Lk 4:21-30

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.30.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* Today in the Liturgy of the Word we learn a great deal about Jesus and how he wants us to relate to him, and a lot about our own vocations and how we’re supposed to relate to each other.

* The Gospel scene is a continuation of what began last Sunday when Jesus, arriving in his hometown synagogue, was invited by the Chazzan, the synagogue leader, to read a passage of God’s word and to give a commentary. By this point, Jesus already had a reputation for teaching with authority unlike any had ever heard. He was becoming famous especially for the miracles he was working throughout Galilee, like casting out demons and curing the sick and the paralyzed. Jesus unrolled the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, read one of the most famous passages referring to the Messiah for whom the Jews had long awaited and gave a once sentence homily, that Isaiah’s words, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,” referring to the Messiah were not longer directed to the future but were being fulfilled in their hearing right then.

* Mark and St. Luke both tell us that his listeners’ first reaction to Jesus’ teaching was astonishment. They were amazed at the “gracious words that came from his mouth” and “the wisdom that had been given to him,” both of which were probably very much on display in the way he read the words of Isaiah that he, the Word of the Father, had inspired seven centuries before. But that quickly changed once they began to reflect on what he said. First, Jesus was saying that he was the Messiah. That couldn’t be, they thought, because they knew him, they likely had pieces of furniture he made, they remember him playing with them or their kids when he was younger. Echoing the doubt that that Nathaniel would say to Philip when Philip told him they had found the One about whom Moses had spoken, they didn’t believe, on the basis of Scripture and experience, that anything good, not to mention the Messiah, could come from Nazareth. “Is this not Joseph’s son?,” they derisively asked themselves. “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?,” they assailed his credentials. Second, if the Scripture their long-time neighbor and construction worker had read was being fulfilled in their hearing, and he had come to proclaim the Gospel to the poor, liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, then they naturally began to ask themselves whether he was saying they were poor, captive, blind and oppressed.

* Rather than engaging their consciences, however, to see if what Jesus was saying might be true, rather than humbly asking, “What should we do?,” St. Mark tells us that they began to ask him to put a show there of healing like he had done in the Synagogue of Capernaum. Jesus not only didn’t do miracles there but couldn’t — except for the healing of a few sick people — because of their “lack of faith,” which left Jesus stupefied. To try to provoke them to faith, Jesus described the faith of some pagans whose faith led to great miracles, but they didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Their doubts quickly multiplied and, as St. Mark describes, they began to “take offense at Jesus.” Not only did they refuse to believe in what he said,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. Agnes Church, Manhattan

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Extraordinary Form

January 30, 2022

Rom 13:8-10, Mt 8:23-27

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.30.22_EF_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* Today’s readings help us to contemplate two of the most important things in Christian life, faith and love: faith in the face of our most existential fears; love even in circumstances when others don’t love us.

* vJesus’ whole life, of course, is an answer to that question. He did care that we were about to die and that was the reason why the Son of God, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, took our human nature and was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He cared enough that he spent himself to the point of exhaustion teaching, healing the sick and comforting the afflicted. He cared enough ultimately to take our place on death row, giving his life so that we might survive. Like Jonah, who was tossed into the sea in order to calm the ferocious storm of the sea, so Jesus tossed himself overboard to quell the tempests that were causing us to die. As he hurled himself into the abyss from the Cross, he calmed the storm of sin so that we might reach the eternal shore. His entire life was a demonstration of the depth of his loving care.

* The problem was that the apostles doubted that saving concern. Just like the serpent in the desert had seduced Eve and Adam to doubt in God’s love for them, so here again he was tempting the apostles. The twelve were like the twelve tribes of Israel 1300 years before. After they had witnessed God’s hand in the ten plagues of Egypt, after they had seen him part the Red Sea, after they had seen Pharaoh’s horsemen and chariots perish in the sea, after they had witnessed Moses’ strike the rock to provide them water, after they had been fed miraculously with manna and then quails from heaven, after they had seen the thunder and lightening of Moses’ conversations with God on the top of Mt. Sinai, the Israelites continued to doubt in God’s love for them. They obviously knew that God had the power — he had already shown them this power on all these occasions — but they didn’t have faith that he would continue to use that power to help them. “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt,” they complained to Moses, “that you have taken us away to die in the desert?” (Ex 14:11). Whenever anything got difficult, they grumbled. They doubted. They began to question whether God’s solicitude had an expiration date. His past actions didn’t factor into their equation.

* The same thing was happening with their descendents in the boat. They had witnessed Jesus’ power and his goodness on so many occasions, but they began to wonder whether his love — not his power — had a limit. They began to question whether he was indifferent to their plight. It was, simply put, a lack of faith in who he was, based on a failure to grasp the meaning of all he had done up until then. That’s why Jesus, as soon as he had awakened turned to his followers and said, “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?”

* The same lack of faith that happened to Adam and Eve in the Garden, to the Jews in the desert and to the apostles on the Sea of Galilee can happen to all of us. Generally, few of us question whether God has the power to work a miracle, but very often we begin to wonder whether he has the will. When we’re assailed by the storms of sorrow, the downpours of doubt, the twisters of uncertainty, the hail of anxiety, and the blizzards of loneliness, we can start to imagine that he is having sweet dreams while we’re experiencing nightmares. We can start to reckon that he’s snoring while we’re screaming for help.