Catholic Preaching

Fr. Roger J. Landry

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

Alexandria, South Dakota

March 1-8, 2022

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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/3.3.22_Conference_4_Passover_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Carmelite Monastery of Our Mother of Mercy and Saint Joseph

Alexandria, South Dakota

Thursday after Ash Wednesday, Extraordinary Form

March 3, 2022

Is 38:1-6, Mt 8:5-13

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.3.22_EF_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* Today in the first reading the Prophet Isaiah tells the righteous king Hezekiah — the 10th generation grandson of David and 18th generation grandfather of St. Joseph in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus —  “Put your house in order, for you are about to die.” This is a classic Lenten theme, as we were reminded yesterday as we were marked with ashes in the sign of the Cross and reminded that we are dust and unto dust we shall return. It’s also a lapidary retreat theme, as we remember that we, too, die — memento mori! — and learn truly how to live. That’s what so many retreatants have done, like famously St. John Paul II, revising his last will and testament at the beginning of Lent each year on his annual retreat. On this second day of the Lenten season, it’s important not to miss acting on the prophet’s message.

* In Thomas à Kempis’ spiritual classic, The Imitation of Christ, he urged all believers, “Very quickly will there be an end of you here; take heed therefore how it will be with you in another world. … O the dullness and hardness of man’s heart, which thinks only of the present, and looks not forward to the future. 
You ought in every deed and thought so to order yourself, as if you were to die this day. … Happy is the man who has the hour of his death always before his eyes, and daily prepares himself to die. … When it is morning, reflect that you shall not see the evening, and at eventide dare not to boast yourself of the morrow. Always be prepared, and so live that death may never find you unprepared. Many die suddenly and unexpectedly. For at such an hour as you think not, the Son of Man will come. … Strive now to live in such a way that at the hour of death you may rather rejoice than fear. Learn now to die to the world, so shall you begin to live with Christ. Learn now to spurn all earthly things, and then you may freely go unto Christ. … Think of nothing but your salvation; care only for the things of God. Make friends for yourself by venerating the saints of God and walking in their footsteps, so that when you die, you may be received into everlasting dwellings. Keep yourself a stranger and a pilgrim upon the earth, to whom the things of the world belong not. Keep your heart free and lifted up towards God, for here we have no lasting city. To Him direct your daily prayers with cries and tears, that your spirit may be found worthy to pass happily after death to its Lord.”

* Kempis’ spiritual wisdom, which has formed many saints over the last six centuries, is based on the insight that it is only when we realize that today may be our last day, that we may not have the opportunity to put off the truly important things until tomorrow, that we begin to think clearly and put our house in order today. We act differently toward people when we realize our interaction with them might be our last. We begin to look at time differently and no longer wish to waste it. We’re not tempted in the same way toward the harsh word, or the impure thought, or the vengeful action, knowing that that might be the last thing we ever do. We begin to have a far deeper appreciation for prayer and the Sacraments. We cease to sleepwalk spiritually and become fully alert to the meaning of every moment, thought, word and deed.

* A little over ten years ago, two days before he would retire as Archbishop of Philadelphia, Cardinal Justin Rigali wrote for the priests of his archdiocese a...

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/3.2.22_Conference_3_Abraham_and_Melchizedek_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/3.2.22_Conference_2_Tree_of_Life_Abel_1.mp3

 

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Carmelite Monastery of Our Mother of Mercy and Saint Joseph

Alexandria, South Dakota

Ash Wednesday, Extraordinary Form

March 2, 2022

Joel 2:12-19, Matt 6:16-21

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.2.22_EF_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* The message of Ash Wednesday is given to us by the Prophet Joel: “Return to me with your whole heart.” Our God is who “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, rich in kindness and relenting in punishment,” summons us to come back to him not half-heartedly, but with our whole heart. This calling means several things:

* To return to him with love, indeed, all of our love. Sometimes we can approach the Lord out of a sense of duty, we can go through the motions, we can even regard him with fear. He fills us with his love so that we can indeed approach him with love.

* To return to him with purity of heart. We can’t love him with our whole heart if our heart is set on other objects, full worldly cares and anxieties, the lure of earthly pleasures or even spiritual goods like consolations. We can’t come back if our heart carries the baggage of sinful desires consented to.

* To return to him with the whole of our being. In the Bible, the heart always symbolizes the core of the person, where reason, will and emotions converge. The Lord wants us back body and soul fully.

* To return to him with courage. He wants us not to lose heart, but to be lionhearted in hearing and heeding his call to a spiritual renewal. He wants us to put our heart into the good fight, to be valiant in the Lenten discipline he gives us to make us greater disciples.

* God through the Prophet Joel then sketches for us various means to return to him wholeheartedly:

* With fasting — to help us hunger for him

* With weeping — out of contrition for our sins and the sins of the world, seeking to allow him to bring good out of evil through a medicine of mercy greater than our illness

* With mourning — for so many opportunities and graces lost, seeking to make up for lost time, and conscious that those who mourn are blessed and will be consoled.

* To bring offerings and libations — a prophecy, of course, to the self-offering of Jesus’ body and blood in the Eucharist, together with our own self-offering on the paten.

* To gather the people, notify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children — Conversion is not meant to be a solo or individualistic process, but an ecclesial one

* To have the bridegroom and bride leave the honeymoon suite — indicating that there’s a greater love involved even than the most fresh experiences of human love, because human marriage is meant to remind us of God’s plan for the maker to marry us, to heed and live the spousal message of Hosea and Isaiah.

* To have priests on behalf of everyone cry out before the altar for mercy and asking God to manifest his loving forgiveness before all peoples, so that we may no longer be a source of reproach but a source of inspiration and sanctification.

* This is what it means to return to the Lord with our whole heart: with our stomachs, tear ducts, pierced hearts, with sacrifice, with others, with spousal commitment and love, in communion with our clergy, with an awareness that God calls us to reflect light to the world not scandal.

* Jesus in the Gospel intensifies this message. The Son of God took on our nature precisely to show and help us to return to God with our whole heart. He reminds us today, “Where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” Lent is about rediscovering the extraordinary treasure to which God has ma...

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/3.1.22_Introduction_Conference_1_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

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

February 26, 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: 

* 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 about a few of the central things we are going to need to live a good and holy Lent, which begins in just three days on Ash Wednesday.

* Lent is a spiritual boot camp in which we strive, with God’s help, to become more and more like Christ. Jesus tells us in this Sunday’s Gospel, “No disciple is superior to the teacher, but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher.” Lent provides the training for us to become like Christ. Just as he went to the desert for 40 days to pray, so we make the commitment to improve the quality — and for most of us — quantity of our prayer time. Just as Jesus fasted so much that the devil’s first temptation to him was to try to have him transform stones into bread, so we take on the self-discipline of fasting, which helps us to say “yes” to God and “no” to sin by training us to say “no” to our appetite for food and drink. Just as Jesus generously gave everything down to the last drop of his blood, so in Lent we seek to imitate his merciful love, giving of ourselves, our time, our gifts and our material resources, to those who are in need. The main purpose of Lent is to become like the praying, fasting, almsgiving Jesus and Jesus seeks to give us that training so that we can become like him, our teacher. He wants us, however, to make a commitment to receive that training, a dedication similar to how rookies approach training camp, 18-year-olds approach boot camp for the Marines, like hard-working students approach exam period.

* Lent is, second, about recognizing our blind spots, the sins that cloud our vision, and striving by God’s mercy to eliminate them. Jesus asks in the Gospel we’ll hear this Sunday, “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?” He adds, “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? … Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.” If we are to become like Jesus through the training of Lent and the discipline of the Christian life as a whole, then we are meant to guide others in Jesus’ footsteps on the narrow way that leads to eternal life. But in order to lead others, we need to see clearly. That’s why in Lent we first need to examine our consciences, to recognize our sins, which Jesus compares to wooden beams in our eyes that prevent us from seeing God in all parts of our life, from noticing what he sees in others and in situations, and with God’s help to remove those planks. That’s the process we call repentance. Just like Jesus cured many blind men in the Gospel, so he wants to heal us. He says elsewhere in the Gospel that the eye is the lamp for the body, but if the eye is bad, the whole body will be in darkness; and if the light in us is darkness, he continues, how deep will the darkness be. In Lent Jesus wants us to see everything in his light so that our whole life will be filled with light, rather than darkness. And this is essential if we’re ever going to set the example for others that he wants us to set. If our eyes and souls are in darkness, we can’t help others remove the sins from their eyes.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sister of Life, Manhattan

Friday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

February 25, 2022

James 5:9-12, Ps 103, Mk 10:1-12

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.25.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

 

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today in the Gospel, Jesus speaks about the meaning of marriage, but in so doing he describes not just what marriage is God’s plans but opens a window into who God is, who the human person is, and how he’s called to love. And in the first reading, St. James focuses on virtues that will help us to persevere in living out the nuptial reality of our existence. These are, by God’s providence, good lessons by which to frame my latest regularly scheduled Mass with you. Since my first Mass here, March 20, 2015, I have come 358 times to celebrate Mass with you, where together we have entered into the consummation of Christ the Bridegroom’s one-flesh, faithful, fruitful, indissoluble Covenantal union with his Bride. It’s here where we have sought to say to our compassionate and merciful Lord a yes that means yes in response to the yes he is and says to us. And we give him thanks for the way he has allowed us mutually to strengthen each other’s faithful fiat and adamant amen. As we seek to bless the Lord with all our soul, have our whole being bless his holy name and forget not his benefits, let us enter anew into today’s readings, which summarize in a sense all of salvation history.

* When the Pharisees come to Jesus to try to trip him up with a question about whether it is licit for a man to divorce his wife, Jesus said that Moses permitted divorce because of the hardness of hearts, but that divorce and remarriage were not part of God’s plans. Jesus begins at the beginning, with the creation of the human person: “From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.” “God created man male and female,” as we read in the Book of Genesis; “in the image of God he made them.” That’s why Saint John Paul II in his beautiful catechizes on Human Love in the Divine Plan (popularly called the Theology of the Body) said that the greatest expression of the imago Dei is the family: God is a unitary Deity but a loving communion of persons and therefore, the image of God is more than just man’s rational nature, but his capacity to live in a communion of love. And the greatest human example of that loving communion of persons is marriage, where analogously to the way that the Father’s and Son’s love spirated the Holy Spirit the love of a man and a woman can beget a child, who is a fruit of their love and a source for that love to grow. That’s what marriage was in the beginning, the primordial sacrament, the external sign in the visible world pointing to the interpersonal communion who is God. All of nature, from the beginning, is communal, and the human person was created with a nuptial nature meant to bring him into communion with others and with God.

* When Jesus came, he sought to elevate marriage from this primordial sacrament to one of the seven sacraments, a sign and means of intimate communion with God. It was meant to point to, and be inserted within, the nuptial dimension of the Covenant God makes with us his people. After quoting the words Jesus cited in today’s Gospel from the Book of Genesis, that a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one fles...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Thursday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

February 24, 2022

Jas 5:1-6, Ps 49, Mk 9:41-50

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.24.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today Jesus speaks to us very powerfully in the Gospel about the coherence, the integrity, the correspondence between what we believe and how we behave, we’re supposed to have in our life. This is a coherence that’s supposed to be found in not just the big things of our life but the little things. He begins by saying that anyone who gives a cup of cold water to another because of the person’s relationship to Christ will surely not lose his reward. Christian coherence doesn’t involve fidelity onlywhen threatened with martyrdom, but fidelity in looking out with the eyes and the heart to care for the needs of anyone who is thirsty, aware that Christ identifies with everyone who is thirsty and longs to say to us, “When I was thirsty, you gave me to drink.”

* But then Christ pivots to talk about incoherence and the scandal that it gives. With very graphic language, he says, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” It’s bad enough that we sin, but Jesus says it’s infinitely worse when we lead others to sin, especially those with a child-like faith who look with love to Jesus and expect us to represent Him and live what he asks of us. One of the most frightening ways people were put to death in the ancient world was by drowning them. Their hands would be tied behind their back securely and a rope would be tied around their neck and attached to heavy weights — occasionally a millstone — and they would be drawn like an anchor straight to the bottom of the river or lake or sea. Jesus was saying that having that happen to you would be better than what will happen to those who cause scandal. Jesus is infinitely merciful with individual sinners who with repentance approach him for forgiveness, but here he can’t be more brutal in describing how severe he is, and he wants us to be, with conduct that leads to sin and scandal, not only because will it lead us to death but because it’s also spiritually homicidal.

* So he tells us, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. … And if your foot causes you to sin, cut if off.  … And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.” The reason is because “it is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands [or two feet or two eyes] to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire.” At first this seems savage but it’s basic human wisdom. Doctors amputate legs when the legs cannot be saved lest the whole person die. Hikers trapped in rocks amputate their harms so that they may escape. Jesus is telling us to live spiritually by the same wisdom with regard to spiritual amputations. If there’s something leading us to sin and through our incoherent life leading others to sin, we need to be brutal in surgically excising it from our life. If we don’t amputate these scandal-inducing sins from our life, we’ll have a worse fate than being drowned with a millstone tied around our neck. The question is, Are we as prudent spiritually as doctors and hikers are physically?

* St. James in the first reading today spoke about one particular type of evil that we need to be brutal in excising from our life: the selfish hoarding of possessions while others are in need. He was writing his letter to Christians and he said that many of them were preparing themselves for slaughter by “killing the righteous one.