Catholic Preaching

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Easter Vigil, C

April 16, 2022

 

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

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The following text guided the homily: 

* Happy Easter, everyone! This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter together into dialogue with the Risen Lord Jesus as we begin the Easter Season.

* After Jesus’ resurrection, he engages in various consequential conversations with his disciples: with Mary Magdalene in the Garden, with the disciples on the Road to Emmaus, with the ten apostles in the Upper Room, with Doubting Thomas, with Saint Peter at the Sea of Galilee, with about 500 disciples as he prepared to ascend to the Father’s right side.

* But as we see in the Gospel passages chosen for the Easter Vigil and for Easter morning, the emphasis is mainly on the fact of Jesus’ resurrection, what that reality says to us, and what we say to ourselves, God and others as a result. In St. Luke’s account that we hear this year at the Easter Vigil, Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Mary the mother of James head to the tomb at daybreak to anoint Jesus’ body with spices, but they find the stone rolled away and two angels in the tomb who tell them that the Living One is not among the dead, but has been raised on the third day just as he promised. They then ran to announce this fact to the eleven apostles, who didn’t believe them. In St. John’s version for Easter morning, a confused Mary Magdalene, after seeing the stone rolled away, told Saints Peter and John, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb and we do not know where they put him.” The apostles ran to the tomb, entered the tomb, saw the burial cloths and head covering, and St. John tells us, “he saw and believed.”

* Jesus didn’t meet them first and say, “Surprise!” He wanted them to have to confront the fact of his resurrection, fulfilling the words he had told them on at least three occasions, that he would be betrayed, crucified, but on the third day be raised. We know that even when they would see him for the first time, they would nevertheless doubt. Mary Magdalene thought he was the gardener. The apostles thought he was a ghost. The mind-blowing reality of his being alive 40 hours after his brutal crucifixion was something that they needed time to digest, and he gave them that time, to ponder his words and engage the possibility that what he had said, what the angels in the tomb had said, what the women running from the tomb had said, and for Thomas what the other ten apostles had said, was true.

* The Risen Lord Jesus wants to have a conversation with us like he did with Mary Magdalene calling us by name, with the disciples to Emmaus making our hearts burn and helping us to recognize him in the Eucharist, with the apostles confirming us in the gift of Divine Mercy as we’ll speak about next Sunday, and with the great multitude as he gave us the commission to go to the whole world, proclaiming the Gospel to everyone, baptizing in the name of the Trinity, teaching them to carry out everything Jesus commanded, and knowing the Risen Lord Jesus will be with us always until the end of time.

* But he also wants us to confront the fact of his resurrection and draw its conclusions in our life. The Resurrection is the definitive confirmation of everything Jesus said and did and so it must be consequential. That’s why at both the Easter Vigil and Easter morning Mass the Church has us renew our baptismal vows. Reflecting on the fact of Jesus’ resurrection, the Church asks us whether we reject Satan,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY

Palm Sunday

April 10, 2022

Lk 19:28-40, Is 50:4-7, Ps 22, Phil 2:6-11, Lk 22:14-23:56

 

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

 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/4.10.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The text that guided today’s homily was: 

* We have now begun the week that the Church calls “holy.” It’s holy, first, because of all Jesus Christ did during these days, from the triumphal entry into his city at the beginning of this Mass, to his teaching in the Temple, to the Last Supper, to his prayer in Gethsemane, to his arrest, torture, crucifixion, preaching and death on Good Friday, to his rest in the tomb, and his glorious resurrection on the third day. It’s also called holy because it’s meant to make us holy, if we live this week the right way, if we enter into the mysteries we celebrate, if we internalize all Jesus won for us during these most holy of days. Holy Week is supposed to be our most faith-filled week of the year, but that requires our choosing to make it the most faith-filled week of the year.

* Right before the passage of today’s second reading from the Letter to the Philippians in which we focus on how Christ emptied himself to take on human nature, St. Paul tells us to have in us the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, who humbled himself to the point of death on the Cross. Holy Week is meant to help us enter into the mind and heart of Jesus. Today in the Gospel at the beginning of Mass and in the Passion we just recited, we see five different ways we’re called to enter into Jesus and respond to him with faith this week so that he through these sacred mysteries may fulfill his desire to save and sanctify us.

* The first thing we learn is how to welcome Jesus. There was great expectation as to whether Jesus was coming to the feast. Many thought he wouldn’t because they had heard the rumors that the chief priests and the Sanhedrin were trying to arrest Jesus and have him executed. But Jesus came anyway. And we see how the people responded. St. Matthew tells us, “The very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and strewed them on the road. The crowds preceding him and those following, [especially the young people,] kept crying out, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” There was tremendous excitement. People came out of their homes. They laid down their clothes on the road, something they would do only for a king. They saw him riding on a donkey, just as David had Solomon do when he made him a king (1 Kings 1:33, 38). They recognized that this was the fulfillment of Zechariah’s Messianic prophecy, “Say to daughter Zion, ‘Behold your King comes to you, meek and riding on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”

* Their attitude shows us the type of exhilaration we should have to welcome Jesus this Holy Week. We should be running out to greet him. We should be praising him with our words, with our gestures like waving palms, with our clothes, and with our whole mind, heart, soul and strength. Our life should change as we seek to welcome Jesus as he during this week seeks to rescue us from sin and death and make eternal life possible.

* If we’re looking for an even deeper image of how we’re supposed to welcome Jesus and live this Holy Week we can turn to the donkey that Jesus used to enter into the Holy City. Jesus had sent two disciples ahead of him, saying, “Go into the village opposite you and immediately you will find an ass tethered, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them here to me. And if anyone should say anything to you, reply, ‘The Master has need of them.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for Palm Sunday, C, Vigil

April 9, 2022

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/4.9.22_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 prepare for Holy Week by focusing on the life-changing dialogue the Lord Jesus wants to have with us as we retrace with him the most important events in the history of the world.

* We call this week holy, first and foremost, because of all Jesus Christ did during this week, from the triumphal entry into his city on Palm Sunday, to his teaching in the Temple, to the Last Supper, to his prayer in Gethsemane, to his arrest, torture, crucifixion, preaching and death on Good Friday, to his rest in the tomb, and his glorious resurrection on the third day. But Holy Week is holy because it’s also supposed to make us holy — if we follow Jesus up close, if we enter into the mysteries, if we receive within us all he won for us during this time. Holy Week ought to be our most faith-filled week of the year.

* Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, the only Mass during the year in which we have two Gospel passages, one at the start of the Mass in which we ponder Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when the crowds hail him with Palm branches and shouts of “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” The second is the solemn reading of the Lord’s passion, in which we enter into Jesus’ self-giving during the Last Supper and retrace his suffering as the fickle crowds should, “Crucify Him!.” It’s normal on Palm Sunday for preachers to focus on the Passion, the longest Gospel passage read throughout the year and, with the passages on the resurrection, the real heart of the Gospel. Today, however, to orient us for Holy Week, I would like to preach on first Gospel, the Gospel of Palm Sunday proper, because it shows us how to welcome Jesus and journey with him throughout these holy days.

* The details are few but highly significant. Let’s begin with Jesus’ transportation. Jesus sent two of his disciples to go the village opposite them where they’d find a tethered colt on which no one had ever sat, to untie it and bring it to him. When the owner asked, “Why are you untying this colt?,” they replied, as Jesus had instructed them, “the Master has need of it.” Jesus then rode that colt into Jerusalem. Jesus could have easily walked into the city; after all, except for occasional boat rides across the Sea of Galilee, he walked everywhere. But he wanted to ride the foal of a donkey on which no one had ever sat. He had need of it to fulfill the Messianic prophecy announced by Zechariah, who wrote, “Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, humble and riding on an ass, ona colt, the foal of abeast of burden.” Just as Solomon had ridden a mule, so Jesus was riding a consecrated colt no one had ever used, an indication that he was indeed the Son of David and rightful successor to him. Whereas riding a horse would have been a sign of war, to ride a donkey was a sign that the one riding was coming in peace. Zechariah’s prophecy continues: “He shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. … Because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your captives free from the waterless pit.” This King of peace riding on the foal of a donkey would be a universal king “from sea to sea” who would set people free not from political enemies but from the “waterl...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY

Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year C

April 3, 2022

Is 43:16-21, Ps 126, Philippians 3:8-12, Jn 8:1-11

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/4.3.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

* The whole purpose of Lent is to bring us to a face-to-face, a heart-to-heart, encounter with God’s mercy. On Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, St. Paul in the Epistle begged us, as an ambassador of Christ — God as it were appealing through him — to be “reconciled to God” and not to waste any time because “now” is the “day of salvation.” The prophet Joel told us to rip open our hearts to God’s mercy — a summons repeated in today’s Gospel verse — at the very same time that we prayed in the Psalm, “Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.” And the priest marked us with ashes, reminding us that our bodies will return to dust, he repeated to us the words of Jesus’ first homily: “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” Lent is about recognizing our need for repentance. It’s about believing in the Gospel of God’s merciful love and saving plan. It’s about coming to receive that great gift so as to live new lives. And it’s about being transformed by it to such a degree that we become God’s instruments to help others to receive it. The deeper we get into the Lent, the more powerful this message becomes.

* Last Sunday, as you recall, Jesus preached to us the Parable of the Prodigal Son, which stressed the Father’s undying love for every wayward child, the meaning of genuine repentance and the sadness of those who can’t share their father’s joy. In today’s Gospel, that storyabout God’s forgiveness takes on life, in the encounter of Jesus with the woman caught in adultery and with the hardness of heart of all the “older brothers” who were trying to get her executed rather than striving to bring her to conversion and salvation. Just as Jesus wanted us last week to identify with the Prodigal Son, so he wants us to see ourselves in the woman caught red-handed; just as he wanted us to recognize that often we can behave like the older brother in the Parable who resents mercy given to sinful siblings, so, too, he wishes us to drop whatever stones are in our hands and use even other’s sins as a reminder of our own; and just as in last week’s Parable, he wanted to illustrate God’s infinite merciful love and his joy whenever one of his children is reconciled to him, so today he hopes that we will come to hunger for us to have as life-changing an experience with his mercy as did the adulterous woman.

* For this desired Lenten spiritual metamorphosis to take place, we first have to identify with the woman in today’s Gospel. By God’s mercy, probably none of us has had our sins exposed in all their shame and humiliation before the mobs. This is a far more common occurrence today, however, than in the ancient world. The metastasis of tabloid journalism, the rise of social media, and the popularization of the sins of gossip and detraction have made the destruction of others through the publication of their sins, or presumed sins, widespread. So many politicians, celebrities, even Church leaders, have been dragged to the front pages, stoned with millions of likes and shares and vitriol in comment boxes. But the phenomenon has also engulfed those with no major public profile, including teens and children, who have been so humiliated by cyber-bullying and sexting scandals that they have tragically submitted themselves to the death penalty. In my work with the Sisters of Life and my ministry as a priest, I have met so many whose lives have been turned shamefully inside out because they have been caught red-handed,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, C, Vigil

April 2, 2022

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/4.2.22_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, in which we are eyewitnesses at one of the most powerful confrontations in the Gospel, when various Scribes and Pharisees drag before Jesus a woman caught in the very act of adultery asking whether it was licit to stone her to death.

* Last Sunday, as you remember, Jesus preached to us the Parable of the Prodigal Son, which stressed the Father’s undying love for every wayward child, the meaning of genuine repentance and the sadness of those who can’t share their father’s joy. In this Sunday’s Gospel, that story about God’s forgiveness takes on life, in the encounter of Jesus with the woman living a dissolute life and with the hardness of heart of all the “older brothers” who were trying to get her executed rather than striving to bring her to conversion and salvation.Just as Jesus wanted us last week to identify with the Prodigal Son, so he wants us to see ourselves in the woman caught red-handed; just as he wanted us to recognize that often we can behave like the older brother in the Parable who resents mercy given to sinful siblings, so, too, he wishes us to drop whatever stones are in our hands and use even other’s sins as a reminder of our own; and just as in last week’s Parable, he wanted to illustrate God’s infinite merciful love and his joy whenever one of his children is reconciled to him, so this Sunday he hopes that we will come to hunger to have as life-changing an experience with his mercy as did the adulterous woman.

* For this desired Lenten spiritual metamorphosis to take place, we first have to identify with the woman in this Sunday’s Gospel. By God’s mercy, probably none of us has had our sins exposed in all their shame and humiliation before the mobs. This is a far more common occurrence today, however, than in the ancient world. The metastasis of tabloid journalism, the rise of social media, and the popularization of the sins of gossip and detraction have made the destruction of others through the publication of their sins, or presumed sins, widespread. So many politicians, celebrities, churchmen and women religious, have been dragged to the front pages, stoned with millions of likes and shares and vitriol in comment boxes. But the phenomenon has also engulfed those with no major public profile, including teens and children, who have been so humiliated by cyber-bullying and sexting scandals that they have tragically submitted themselves to the death penalty. In my ministry for seven years serving as a chaplain for the Sisters of Life in New York, I have met so many girls and young women whose lives have been turned shamefully inside out because they have been caught red-handed, pregnant outside of marriage, as modern Hester Prynnes branded with scarlet letters, dealing with the reality that many of those closest to them are the ones with stones aimed at them and at the sons and daughters growing within them. So we know that the drama of this Gospel scene is constantly being replayed and we know many of the characters under the lights.

* Even if, however, we have not been similarly exposed to public shame, each of us is called to identify personally with the adulterous woman, because God has revealed to us repeatedly, especially through the Prophets Jeremiah,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Meditations for the Worldpriest Virtual Rosary

March 31, 2022

 

On Thursday March 31, 2022, I was asked to lead the Rosary for the Worldpriest Virtual Monthly Rosary. Below is a recording of the prayer of the Rosary as well as the meditations prepared on the Luminous Mysteries, together with an introduction and concluding prayer. 

To listen to the audio recording please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.31.22_Luminous_Mysteries_Meditations_1.mp3

 

Here are the written texts that guided the meditations: 

Introductory Words

Earlier this month, on March 12, the Church celebrated the 400thanniversary of the most famous canonization ceremony of all time, when Pope Gregory XV proclaimed the sanctity of Ignatius Loyola, Teresa of Avila, Francis Xavier, Philip Neri and Isidore the Farmer, giants in the history of the Church who, through their example, writings, ecclesial foundations and heavenly intercession, continue very much to help and guide the Church.

Their 400thanniversary is something that should joyfully be celebrated not just on March 12 or even the whole month of March but all of 2022.

For that reason today, as we ask them to join us in prayer for all the intentions we bring to God through our Lady during this holy Rosary, we will ponder, during each of the mysteries, some aspects of their life and writings.

Let us begin: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The First Luminous Mystery — The Baptism of the Lord in the Jordan

When John was baptizing at the Jordan River, it was a sign of conversion and the need to be washed free of sin, but it was not yet a sacrament capable of cleansing us from sin. Everything changed when his cousin Jesus approached and descended into the waters. He sanctified the waters so that Christian baptism would be able to deliver on what John’s baptism indicated needed to be done — wash us free from all sin — and even more than that, have God the Father adopt us as his beloved sons and daughters in whom he is well pleased and have the Holy Spirit not only come down on us but dwell in us as his temple. What an awesome gift Baptism is!

This was the gift Saint Francis Xavier, the greatest missionary in the history of the Church after Saint Paul, brought to multitudes in Goa, the Pearl Fishery Coast of India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Japan and died on the shores of China seeking to bring there, too. By the reports he sent to St. Ignatius in Rome, he ended up personally baptizing 700,000 Christians. In Travancore on the southern tip of India, he baptized 10,000 in a month, until his arm went completely numb. That right arm is now enshrined in the Church of the Gesù in Rome as a witness not only to his heroic perseverance in bringing so many to the Christian life, but also of the importance of baptism for salvation.

We pray through his intercession asking for the grace of wonderous gratitude for the gift of our baptism, the most important day of our life, and for zeal like him to do our part in carrying out the Lord’s great commission, going to the whole world, proclaiming the Gospel to every creature, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to carry out everything Jesus has commanded, conscious that Jesus is with us always until the end of time.

The Second Luminous Mystery — The Wedding Feast of Cana

In Cana of Galilee, due to his Mother’s intercession, Jesus worked his first public miracle, changing 180 gallons — the equivalent of 912 seven-hundred-and-fifty-milliliter bottles — of water into precious wine. But the Church has always grasped that that act of co...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Day of Recollection for the Priests of the Diocese of Metuchen

St. John Neumann Pastoral Center, Piscataway, NJ

March 30, 2022

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.30.22_Ambassadors_of_Mercy_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Day of Recollection for the Priests of the Diocese of Metuchen

St. John Neumann Pastoral Center, Piscataway, NJ

March 30, 2022

 

To listen to the audio recording of this talk, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.30.22_Imitating_What_We_Celebrate_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, C, Vigil

March 26, 2022

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.26.22_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The text that guided the homily was: 

* 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, in which he engages us with perhaps the most famous short story of all time. It’s called the Parable of the Prodigal Son after the youngest of two brothers, but it could easily have been called the Parable of the Merciful Father or the Parable of the Merciless Brother. We know the details of the story so well that we can pass immediately to trying to understand better and apply it more fully.

* We begin with the younger son. His essential sin was not all that he did to blow his inheritance on a dissolute life. It was to treat his Father as if he were dead. To ask for the inheritance while the Father was still living was tantamount to saying, “You’re dead to me, Old Man. I don’t want to wait until you croak. Give me now what you’re planning to give me when finally you breathe your last.” And the Father, doubtless more concerned over the direction of his son’s life than nursing his own wounds at the son’s ingratitude and presumption, gave him the inheritance, probably figuring out it would be the only chance that the son might have of learning the lesson he had long missed. The son, as we know, went and squandered everything in an immoral life. Eventually when a famine hit the land where he was, he needed to do work that no Jew would ever have signed up for, to care for pigs (whom the Jews considered unclean animals). He was eventually so hungry that he longed for what the pigs were eating, something that indicated basically that he had become almost subhuman. But that’s when the grace of conversion hit him. “Coming to his senses,” St. Luke writes, he realized that his Father’s hired hands were always well fed and he decided to return to his Father’s house, to apologize for his sins, and asked to be treated like a hired hand. When we hear the word today, “hired hand,” most of us, I think, imagine he was asking to be treated as an “employee,” but it really “less than a slave.” Slaves were considered members of the household to some degree and they were taken care of and fed. The “hired hands” were not members of the family. They were responsible for their own upkeep, if they could get a job day-by-day. But the younger son recognized that the Father was kind and gave “more than enough food to eat” even to those who had no right to food. The son was beginning to reawaken to the Father’s goodness. But he still didn’t understand the Father. He rehearsed his speech as he was returning home, that he had sinned against God and against his father — both of whom he had treated as if they were dead to him — and didn’t deserve to be treated as a son. But the Father, seeing him far off, was filled with merciful love and ran to his son, probably hustling the way a child scampers across the airport to greet his or her father returning from military service overseas. The son began with his well-practiced confession, but the Father interrupted him. He called for the finest garment to be put around him to cover up all of the swine excrement with which doubtless he had been covered. He put a signet ring on his finger, to show that he still had “power of attorney” over the Father’s goods. He had sandals placed on his feet to symbolize that he was free to go about as he pleased — slaves never had sandals.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent, C, Vigil

March 19, 2022

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.19.22_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 he will speak to us what are in my opinion his most forceful words of conversion that we hear in the 156-week cycle of the Church’s Sunday liturgical readings. Two and a half weeks ago, you recall, as Lent began, we were marked with ashes, reminded that we are dust and unto dust we shall return upon our death and instructed to repent and believe in the Gospel. We listened with fresh ears to St. Paul’s appeal as an ambassador of Christ calling us to be “reconciled to God,” appealing to us not to take this time in vain, and begging us not to procrastinate, saying, “Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation.”

* This Sunday’s readings shock us out of complacency — almost as defibrillator paddles for our souls — and get us to examine honestly before the Lord whether we have been responding to this acceptable time of mercy with the urgency and priority that God desires or whether we have been taking these 40 days and perhaps our whole Christian life and calling, for granted.

* In Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus begins with current events, referring to two tragedies that had captured the attention of the crowds in previous days. If Jesus were preaching today, he could easily make the same point referring to the appalling atrocities being committed in the Ukraine or about any fatal car accident we see on the news.

* Someone asked his opinion about massacre of Galileans by Pontius Pilate in the Temple whose blood had been mixed with animal sacrifices. Those pilgrims from Galilee had made the long journey to the Temple in Jerusalem to pray, but they had gotten caught up in a crowd where protestors were demonstrating against Pilate’s decision to raid the Temple coffers for funds to build a new water system. When Pilate sent his troops to quell the protest, the soldiers met resistance, unsheathed their swords and massacred not only the protestors but these Galilean bystanders. There was a superstition at the time that if people died in such a way, it had to be a sign that God was punishing them for some serious sins they had committed, as if they somehow “deserved it.” Jesus asks, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way, they were greater sinners than all other Galileans?” “No way!,” he replied. Then he raised another example of people who were bathing underneath the water tower at the pool of Siloam in Jerusalem, which they believed had miraculous powers to cure them of bodily illnesses. The shoddily constructed tower collapsed and crushed to death some of those bathing. Jesus asked again, whether the 18 people who died were “more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem!” “By no means!,” he said again. And he made a crucial moral point in response to both tragedies: “I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” Jesus didn’t mean that we would all die by being in the wrong place at the wrong time as a victim of some terrible accident. He meant that unless we repent, we will die as unready as the pilgrims from Galilee in the Temple or those underneath the Siloam water tower. The only way we’ll be ready to die well, to die ready to pass to life, will be if we repent and believe in the Gospel,