Catholic Preaching

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY

Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C

February 13, 2022

Jer 17:5-8, Ps 1, 1Cor 15:12.16-20, Lk 6:17.20-26

 

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

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The following text guided the homily: 

* There is a huge contrast in today’s readings. In the first reading, the prophet Jeremiah describes the contrast as essentially one of trust. On the one hand, there are “those who trust in human beings and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord.” On the other there are those who “trust in the Lord.” Those who place their trust in things of this world live, he says, like a “shrub in the desert… parched… a lava waste, a salt and empty earth.” Those who trust in the Lord, in contrast, are “like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when the heat comes: its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.”

* This insight is crucial for us to understand why Jesus says what he says in the Gospel in his famous Sermon on the Plain. All the beatitudes and woes he describes have to do with whether a condition fosters trust in God or trust in men, material possessions, whether the condition makes us turn toward the Lord or “away from the Lord.”

* On the subject of money, Jesus says “blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours” and “woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” The point he’s making is those who are rich often place their faith, hope and security in money and the things money can buy. Those who are poor often have no one or nothing to turn to but God. In terms of what really matters, their poverty turns out to be a blessing because it helps them to place their treasure in God and stretch out their roots to his eternal stream.

* On the subject of food, Jesus says “Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied” and “woe to you who are now full, for you will be hungry.” It’s those who are really hungry who mean the prayer “give us today our daily bread,” who learn to hunger and trust in God’s fatherly care. Those who are full, who have no food worries, can often begin to take its presence for granted, can stop saying thanks to God for the food. One state helps to bring one closer to God; the other can often help to turn one’s “heart away from the Lord.” In the final analysis, Jesus says one is clearly better for us.

* With respect to human emotions, Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh” and “woe to you who laugh now for you will grieve and weep.” Those who are laughing now can begin to put their trust and happiness in their own wit or in a group of interesting and entertaining friends and experiences. They may experience human contentment and have their desire for eternal happiness lessened. Those who are weeping on the other hand, who are entrusting their pains, sorrows and intercessions to God, are those who will have the time of their eternal lives.

* The greatest contrast is in terms of how others treat us and think about us. Jesus says “Woe to you when all speak well of you” and “blessed are you when people hate you, exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man.” He says that the false prophets, the spiritual terrorists and great villains of history, were similarly praised in their lifetime but ended up facing judgment; the real heroes of eternity, the true prophets — and we can add Jesus himself, his apostles and so many saints — were hated, denounced and even killed. They all lived a life, however,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. Agnes Church, Manhattan

Septuagesima Sunday

February 13, 2022

1 Cor 9:24-27.10:1-5, Mt 20:1-16

 

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

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The following text guided today’s homily: 

* Today, on Super Bowl Sunday, the largest sporting event of the year in the United States, in the midst of the Winter Olympics, one of the tour four biggest sporting events in the world, St. Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians uses the analogy of sports to speak to us about the Christian spiritual life. As an ex-collegiate athlete and a big sports fan, I’ve always found his words highly motivational. He indicates that if athletes can do so much to win individual or team championships, we ought to be willing to pay the price to capture the far more important and lasting goal of redemption and to help Christ’s team the Church win the salvation of the world. He asks, “Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing.  No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.” That’s extraordinary commitment. No athlete coasts to championships. Those who win gold medals don’t do so by a lifetime of luck. They earn them. Those who take success for granted don’t taste it. St. Paul reminds the Corinthians that so many Israelites had walked through the Red Sea with Moses, ate the manna from heaven, and drank the water from the rock, but God, he says, was not pleased with most of them. Most of them, he implies, were just along for the ride and hadn’t been changed, hadn’t been transformed by faith and gratitude by what God had done, hadn’t put worship of God and love of others first, and had eventually suffered the consequences. St. Paul, on the other hand, was someone who ran to win, who disciplined himself to be a disciple, and who sought to train the first Christians not to be benchwarmers but Hall of Famers through seeking, likewise, to become all things to all people to save as many as possible. As we mark Septuagesima Sunday, the beginning of the period of pre-Lenten preparation in the Extraordinary Form that tells us that Ash Wednesday is only 17 days awayand that seeks to help us to get ready for the spiritual battle that takes place during the quadragesimaor 40 days when we join Jesus in the desert, St. Paul is giving us his annual summons for us to be ambitious in the right way for the right things —to be great, not mediocre, in seeking to live for God’s kingdom and to help as many as possible enter it. He calls us, like athletes with a shot at greatness, to compete to win an imperishable crown. He tells us not to shadow box but to fight for real, to do more spiritual exercises than a sports star does physical ones. Do we approach Lent, and our spiritual life in general, with this type of purpose? With this type of interior resolve, commitment and courage?

* And yet in today’s Gospel Jesus seems to be suggesting the opposite. He appears to be saying that it doesn’t matter how hard we strive for his kingdom. He seems to be telling us that, rather than wasting our time seeking to be first, “The last will be first, and the first will be last.” In other words, the winners will be losers and the losers champs. He appears to be communicating that no matter how hard we work for his kingdom under the brutal sun within his vineyards, we’ll get no advantage at all over those who, like the Good Thief,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Chapel of the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the UN, New York

Saturday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

February 12, 2022

1 Kings 12:26-32.13:33-34, Ps 106, Mk 8:1-10

 

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

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The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today as we make a pilgrimage to the most beautiful Churches in New York City, the readings offer us a great warning as well as a profound consolation.

* Let’s tackle the warning first, which is how our religious impulse can be diverted and how sometimes people, rather than leading people to God lead them away from God. On Thursday, the Church pondered how Solomon, who had built the temple for the worship of God, who had been given by God when he was 18 a wise and understanding heart unlike anyone had ever possessed, who had written so many proverbs and hymns to God, had basically lost his faith, married 700 women and 300 concubines and had begun to build temples to their pagan gods, leading people astray. It got worse. Yesterday we saw how Jeroboam, whom Solomon had placed in charge of his labor force, was met by the prophet Ajihah, who tore his new cloak into 12 pieces and told Jeroboam that ten of those pieces, representing the ten tribes of Israel, would be given to him when Solomon’s kingdom would be divided after Solomon’s death as a result of his fostering of idolatry. He had been chosen by the Lord to rule the ten tribes of the Kingdom of Israel precisely because of Solomon’s idolatry. And yet what do we see him do today? Despite the Lord’s promise, Jeroboam thought to himself, “The kingdom will return to David’s house” if they return to worshipping at the Temple of Jerusalem. They would return not to God, he thought in his politically corrupted musings, but to Rehoboam, David’s grandson and Solomon’s son through an Ammonite wife. And because of his ego and his paranoid sense of self-preservation, Jeroboam led his people into idolatry just like God had condemned Solomon for doing. He said, “If now this people go up to offer sacrifices in the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, the hearts of this people will return to their master, Rehoboam, king of Judah, and they will kill me.” So he decided to change their deity, their temple, their rites, and their priests. Instead of the one true God who had chosen him, he made golden calves. Instead of the Temple where God’s presence dwelt, he built two shrines, one in Dan at the northernmost part of the kingdom along the Jordan River above the Sea of Galilee, and one in Bethel, at the southernmost part of the kingdom a short distance north of Jerusalem. Instead of the feasts God set up, he established his own. And instead of the levites, the priests God had chosen, he allowed anyone who wanted to be a priest to be commissioned. And the people were led away by him from the true God and the temple, the feasts and the priests God himself had established.

* We might think that this is just a terrible thing that happened 920-930 years before Christ, but what Jeroboam did in drawing people away from God happens in every age. There are many rulers who have sought to suppress worship of the true God in order to advance their political objectives. Think of what happened to the Jews during the time of Antioches Epiphanes IV or the Christians during the 13 ferocious anti-Christian persecutions between 64-313 AD. Think about what happened to the Japanese Christians at the beginning of the 1600s or the Christians in communist countries last century and the Chinese and North Korean governments still today. There have been many Jeroboams over the course of history!

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

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

February 12, 2022

 

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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 will speak to us about the path to true happiness with words that are quite shocking and countercultural in every age. The path to lasting joy, he indicates, is the life of faith, one in which we place our trust in God rather than in money, in pleasure, in entertainment or in the esteem of others. It’s what’s called the Sermon on the Plain, which begins with St. Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. Whereas Jesus the Sermon on the Mount features eight aspects of the path to beatitude, in the Sermon on the Plain he focuses on four and contrasts them clearly to four “woes.” This divergence shows that speaking about the path to true happiness, contrasting his ways with the ways of the world, was one of Jesus’ central messages, regularly developed with different nuances. But his essential teaching remains the same: the real path to joy, the way to have life to the full forever, is not just different, but in fact opposite, than what those infected by spiritual worldliness often presume. St. Luke introduces Jesus’ four great contrasts by saying, “Raising his eyes toward his disciples, [Jesus] said.” In other words, Jesus looks each of us straight in the eyes as he gives us this teaching. Let’s receive what Jesus says not as words to “others” or to “everyone,” but to you and me.

* The first contrast is “Blessed are you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours,” versus “Woe to you are rich, for you have received your consolation.” It is simply revolutionary — not just in Jesus’ age, not just our era, but in every epoch — to believe that we’ll be happier if we’re poor than if we’re rich. The point he’s making is those who are rich often place their faith, hope and security in money and the things money can buy; those who are poor, on the other hand, often have no one or nothing to turn to but God. In terms of what really matters, their poverty turns out to be a blessing because it helps them to place their treasure in the Lord.  Jesus says that the “rich” are to be pitied because they have already received their consolation in their money and possessions and often do not look for it in God, in his promises, in his kingdom. Today many people, including Christians, spend more time nourishing their hope to win the lottery rather than to win the eternal bonanza, and Jesus says that these people are “woeful” because they think that the monopoly money and temporary houses on Park Avenue are more valuable that the Father’s House and treasure.

* The second contrast is “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be satisfied,” versus, “Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry.” It’s those who are really hungry who can really pray the words, “Give us today our daily bread,” because they learn to hunger and trust in God’s fatherly care. Those who are full, who have no food worries, can often begin to take God’s providence for granted, and can stop even saying thanks to God for the food. One state helps to bring one closer to God and to placing our foundation in him; the other can often help to turn our hearts away from him. There are people who live to satiate their bodily appetites, obsessing about meals at restaurants, storing up precious wines in cellars,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Friday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes

Thirtieth World Day of the Sick

February 11, 2022

1 Kings 11:29-32.12:19, Ps 81, Mk 7:31-37

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.11.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points guided today’s homily: 

* In today’s Gospel we glimpse the awe of those who witnessed Jesus’ miracles and works as they were happening. By the scene we encounter today, Jesus had already made people’s hearts burn with his preaching. They had seen him cast out demons, cure many who were sick, feed a multitude starting with few pieces of bread and fish, walk on water and even raise a young girl from the dead. On the force of this reputation, several true friends brought a man who was deaf and mute to Jesus, begging him to lay hands on him. They were not to be let down. The Lord put his finger into the man’s ears, touched his tongue with spit, looked up to heaven, sighed, and cried out in Aramaic, “Be opened!” and the miracle was worked. Amazement seized them all. Even though Jesus told them not to say anything about the miracle, they couldn’t help themselves. They were astounded beyond measure and cried out, “He has done all things well!”

* “He has done all things well!” This line of joyful amazement in front of Jesus should be the Christian motto. “Jesus has done all things well!” In his preaching, in his miracles, especially in his salvific passion, death and resurrection, each of us should cry out with the astonished residents of the Decapolis that the Lord has indeed hit a home run on every swing. Everything He does flows from His infinite wisdom. He really does know what is best for us — in terms of our eternal salvation — and carries it out. And his work hasn’t stopped. He continues to listen to us in prayer. He continues to grant countless miracles through the intercession of saints. He continues to feed us with the sacrament of his body and blood. He has done, and continues to do, all things well.

* This motto, which really is the characteristically-Christian attitude, is being challenged in many segments of our culture today. This is really nothing new. The first pagans and Jewish leaders thought Jesus was a colossal failure, a criminal executed shamelessly on the electric chair of his day, a so-called king who died crowned not with gold but with thorns. Little did they know what would happen on Easter Sunday. Little could they fathom what the small band of fishermen, tax-collectors and other relative nobodies would be do in his name throughout the globe. Some people in every age continue to make the accusation that he doesn’t do everything well. They look at the existence of physical evil in the world — babies who are born with serious infirmities, people who are victims of natural disasters, others who are victims of moral evils — and try to argue that either God must not exist, or is not all powerful and all good, or simply doesn’t do all things well. Today on this World Day of the Sick, founded by St. John Paul II 30 years ago, it’s important for us to confront the objection flowing from the problem of evil. Why does suffering exist? St. John Paul II tried to answer it in his exhortation, published 38 years ago today, Salvifici Doloris, and ultimately answered that “suffering unleashes love,” the love of the incarnation, the love of the Good Samaritan, the love we see in the Gospel. Jesus takes on our suffering so that suffering can become a moral good and compassionate care can make us like God. “Suffering, which is present under so many different forms in our human world,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of Saint Scholastica

February 10, 2022

1 Kings 11:4-13, Ps 106, Mk 7:24-30

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.10.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today there is a huge contrast in the readings between perseverance and growth in faith on the one hand and the lack of perseverance, corruption and the idolatry to which it leads on the other. Insofar as there are no plateaus in the spiritual life, that we’re either going up hill with Jesus following the Way of the Cross or sliding downhill, it’s key for us to understand both paths. St. Paul once told St. Timothy that the real choice in life is between perseverance and denial, between faith each day and infidelity (2 Tim 2:12-13). Today we can enter into what God reveals to us in Sacred Scripture so that we may more resolutely walk the path of faith.

*  The scene in the Gospel is one of the most touching in all of Sacred Scripture. Jesus went into the heart of pagan territory to escape from the crowds. But a pagan mother got word that he was there and came to beg him with desperation to exorcise the demons from her daughter. St. Matthew’s version of the scene gives us the most details.  The woman first fell at Jesus’ feet and begged, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.” But Jesus at first gave her no answer at all. She didn’t quit, however. Next she turned to the apostles and begged for their intervention, and they came came and told Jesus, “Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.” So Jesus said to her, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she still didn’t quit. She approached Jesus now that he was speaking to her, fell down before him in homage, and said, using one of the most powerful words in any language:“Lord, help me!” And Jesus, to help her to continue to grow in faith, told her with the typical vocabulary with which Jews and Gentiles would refer to each other, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” But she still didn’t give up. She reminded him that he was the Good Shepherd even of puppies. “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Jesus was amazed at her persevering faith and gave her the greatest compliment in Sacred Scripture: “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish!” And at that moment her daughter was healed. She had been helped to become great in faith precisely by Jesus’ testing.

* That perseverance in faith is contrasted with what we see in the first reading with King Solomon. Solomon, as we saw last Saturday, had been blessed by God with the gift of wisdom, of an understanding heart so that he could properly discern, judge and guide his people. He became famous across the ancient world for the wisdom with which he had been blessed. But eventually his understanding heart became a lustful heart, then a corrupt heart and finally an idolatrous one. It began with his entering into political alliances, which in the ancient world was normally sealed by intermarriage. The Lord had precisely forbidden the Israelites to intermarry because, he said, they would “turn your hearts to their gods.” But Solomon not only intermarried, but fell in love with those he married and what they loved. As we see in the verse immediately before today’s first reading begins, “he had seven hundred wives of princely rank and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart.” He basically had 1,000 wives (in the ancient world concubines were not mistresses ...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Wednesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

February 9, 2022

1 Kings 10:1-10, Ps 37, Mk 7:14-23

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.9.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

* Today we have a chance to focus on how valuable God’s wisdom is and God is, what types of sacrifices we’re willing to make to come to know and enter into communion with the God of wisdom, and how we’re called to receive, ponder, and pass on the gift of divine light.

* In the first reading, we have the remarkable scene of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon. Sheba was located at the bottom of the Arabian Peninsula, encompassing modern Yemen across the Red Sea from Ethiopia. She and her enormous retinue undertook a journey of about 2,300 miles — if you’re wondering how far that it, it’s the distance it would take to walk between New York City and the California border! — in order to come into Solomon’s presence in search of his wisdom.

* She had heard reports in her country thousands of miles away about his wisdom and his deeds. On Saturday, at daily Mass, the Church meditated upon Solomon’s answer to God’s question to him, “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.” The 18-year-old baby king’s response was for an “understanding heart to distinguish right from wrong” in order better to govern God’s people. God was so pleased with the answer that he promised to give him a “heart so wise and understanding” that no one until then, and no one after, would equal him. Immediately thereafter that wisdom was put to the test when two women who had just given birth came to him, one who had tragically smothered her child rolling on top of her baby during her sleep. In the middle of the night she had taken the other woman’s child as her own. In an age prior to DNA testing, there was no way to know for sure whose mom the living child was. Solomon asked for a sword to cut the child in half, thereby exposing who the real mother was. One woman was fine with the solution. The other begged him to give the child to her competitor lest the child die. The teenage king, with that wise and understand heart God had given him, awarded the child to the true mom. The sacred author tells us, “When all Israel heard the judgment the king had given, they were in awe of him, because they saw that the king had in him the wisdom of God for giving judgment.” That was just the beginning. The First Book of Kings goes on to tell us, “God gave Solomon wisdom and exceptional understanding and knowledge, as vast as the sand on the seashore. … He was wiser than all other men and his fame spread throughout the neighboring nations. Solomon also uttered three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered a thousand and five. He discussed plants, from the cedar on Lebanon to the hyssop growing out of the wall, and he spoke about beasts, birds, reptiles, and fishes. Men came to hear Solomon’s wisdom from all nations, sent by all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom.”

* And so it was in this context that the Queen of Sheba came to test him with subtle questions. Solomon explained everything she asked about, the text relates, and there remained nothing that he could not explain to her. She said that his wisdom surpassed even the reports she had heard and she praised the great fortune of Solomon’s servants who had a chance to be with him and hear his wisdom. In gratitude, she emptied her treasury, giving him 120 gold talents a huge quantity of spices and precious stones. Just to give you a sense of how valuable she accounted the gift of Solomon’s answers, the gift of divine wisdom,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of St. Josephine Bakhita

February 8, 2022

1 Kings 8:22-23.27-30, Ps 84, Mk 7:1-13

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.8.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* In the first reading, King Solomon, at the long-awaited dedication of the Temple, after they had sacrificed “sheep and oxen too many to number or to count,” after they had seen the cloud of the Lord’s glory come down to fill the temple, prayed on behalf of the whole people, speaking to God directly: “Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below you keep your covenant of mercy with your servants who are faithful to you with their whole heart.” He praised God for his fidelity, for being faithful to his promises. And Solomon emphasizes that, while God keeps his covenant with everyone because he is faithful, those who  keep their end of the covenant with him, who are faithful to him with their whole heart, loving him in an undivided way, are able to experience how he keeps his covenant of mercy with them to every generation. Solomon then expresses total wonder, “Can it indeed be that God dwells on earth?” He went on: “If the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain you, how much less this temple which I have built!” And finally he makes a petition: “Look kindly on the prayer and petition of your servant, O Lord, my God, and listen to the cry of supplication which I, your servant, utter before you this day. May your eyes watch night and day over this temple, the place where you have decreed you shall be honored; may you heed the prayer which I, your servant, offer in this place. Listen to the petitions of your servant and of your people Israel which they offer in this place. Listen from your heavenly dwelling and grant pardon.” We find there three aspects of prayer, three ways to approach the Lord God: the first is with praise; the second with a conscious awareness of God’s presence leading to overflowing gratitude; and third, we bring to him our needs with humility, begging for his mercy. Those who are faithful to the Lord with their whole heart will experience the fruit and fulfillment of these prayers. The whole approach is summarized in the Psalm when we praise the Lord, saying, “How lovely is your dwelling place,” and then attest, “My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” We begin with God  and his loveliness and then how he has made us to hanker for him.

* Those attitudes of before God are contrasted by Jesus in the Gospel to the spiritual approach of the Pharisees. St. Mark describes the complicated and rigorous practice of Jewish ceremonial washings, something that God had not revealed that he wanted done but something that the Scribes in the fourth and fifth centuries BC had developed to foster ritual purity. They needed to wash their hands in two directions with one-and-a-half egg shells of clean water, first from the fingertips down and then with the fingertips at the bottom. This was the worship they obsessed about, as if these things were what helped them to keep God’s covenant and grow in God’s image and live in love with each other. They did similar washings of cups, jugs, kettles and beds and questioned why Jesus and his disciples did “not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands.” Jesus responded with force, calling them hypocrites and applying to them Isaiah’s words, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do t...

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:

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.7.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

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...