Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Thursday of the 28th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of St. Callistus

October 14, 2021

Rom 3:21-30, Ps 130, Lk 11:47-54

 

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The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today Jesus finishes his very sharp words about those Pharisees who for all their conspicuous religious practices turn out to be murderers on the inside: in imitation of the way their ancestors killed the prophets, they would conspire to have Jesus himself killed. Their essential defect in the understanding of their relationship with God was a focus on their own external actions in fulfillment of the law of the Covenant rather than on whether they were branches attached to God the Vine, whether they were in fact loving God with all they had and loving their neighbor to the extreme or whether they were opposing God and hating or slaying their neighbor. They had become, as Pope Francis said a few years ago in a daily Mass homily, ideologues, those who were living by “moral principles” or by the “law” but were no longer truly living in a relationship with God. Jesus said they had thrown away the key of knowledge — the real, living relationship with God himself, a God who changes us — and had both failed to enter the kingdom themselves but were preventing others from entering.

* St. Paul used to be a Pharisee and lived by a principle that one became right with God — justified — precisely through one’s own deeds but he grasped in and after his conversion, as he writes today, that we are “justified freely by [God’s] grace” (which means by God’s action, unmerited by us) and the way we respond to it, “by faith, apart from works of the law.” He writes about the proper ground of justification by grace through faith working through love today because it was an issue for the Church in Rome, where there were many “Judaized Christians,” Christians influenced by a Pharisaical mentality that said in order to be a good Christian, one first needed to be a good Jew, and to be a good Jew meant to keep the Mosaic law in its entirety. The emphasis in justification in their conception was on fidelity to the Mosaic law, and St. Paul was stressing, rather, that it’s faith in God — not just a belief that he exists but a trust in Him to whom we commit our entire lives — that saves both Greek and Jew, uncircumcised and circumcised. That doesn’t mean our deeds aren’t key. God’s grace received with faith is supposed to be transformative and performative: it’s supposed to change us and that change can’t help but be seen in the way we behave, as we strive and struggle to behave more and more according to God’s grace, according to faith. St. Paul would write in his letter to the Galatians that the goal is “faith working through love,” our faith is supposed to flow in charity toward God and neighbor. That’s why we can say that, while we’re not saved by our deeds, we are judged by our deeds — see Mt 25:31-46 and the way we respond to the poor, the hungry, the sick, the stranger, the imprisoned — because the way we treat our neighbor is an indication of the type of faith we have and whether we’ve responded in faith to the grace of God.

* This year we mark the 500th anniversary of Pope Leo X’s excommunication of Martin Luther and of the Diet of Worms where Luther was called to defend his beliefs before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and where he refused to recant what the Church was criticizing in his 95 theses and other writings. Central to the Reformation was the question of “justification,” of how we’re saved.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Wednesday of the 28th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

October 13, 2021

Rom 2:1-11, Ps 62, Lk 11:42-46

 

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 St. Paul tells the Jews and Christians in Rome, who were influenced by many of the thoughts of the Scribes and Pharisees from the very large Jewish community in the city, that they would be held to no less a standard than the pagans when it comes to conforming themselves to what God has revealed through nature and through revelation. In yesterday’s passage, St. Paul dissected the fallen logic among various of the pagans in Rome, who were suppressing the truth through their wickedness, foolishly exchanging the glory of God for pagan idols, the truth for lies and love for the lust of their hearts and the degradation of their bodies. Today he stresses that God “has no partiality,” plays no favorites and “will repay everyone according to his works.” He reminds both Jews and Christians in Rome that “the standard by which you judge another you condemn yourself since you, the judge, do the very same things.” They condemn themselves when they condemn others and yet, like them, worship idols, live lies, and give into sinful desires — in short when they selfishly disobey the truth and obey wickedness. He tells them that God’s “priceless kindness, forbearance and patience,” should not be held in “low esteem,” but was meant to lead them to repentance so that they, converted, would “seek glory, honor and immortality through perseverance in good works.” The most important of all of the good works is to receive God’s “priceless kindness, forbearance and patience” in the highest esteem, in a fruitful way, converting wholeheartedly and then seeking to imitate God in mercy.

* In the Gospel, Jesus is calling the Pharisees and Scribes to a similar conversion from having one standard for others and a different one for themselves, from living as if God is partial and that they are exempt from what everyone will be judged by on account of their rigorous adhesion to their external practices. These groups, which often overlapped, payed tithes, said prayers three times a day, fasted and observed the feasts, but neglected the weightier things of the law, “judgment and love of God.” Even though they claimed they were living the way God wanted them to live, even though they thought they were doing the works of the law, Jesus was reminding them that they were not paying attention to what was most important and the failure to do these works was leading to their not being right with God. He uses “woes” with them, communicating that unless they change they’re doomed because while they pay tithes on the smallest of garden herbs they “pay no attention to judgment and to love for God.” They focus on the most conspicuous seats and the greetings of others, but are spiritually dead “like unseen graves over which people unknowingly walk.”  They impose burdens on others hard to carry without lifting a finger to help them, the exact opposite of a Good Samaritan. On the outside they seemed to be doing the works of God, Jesus was saying, but on the inside they were not loving God and loving neighbor and taking a positive verdict at the judgment for granted. With priceless kindness, forbearance and patience God had been treating his people, but they could not use it as an excuse to continue to sin. They needed to change from their hypocrisy and externalism and keep to judgment, the love of God and mercy toward others.

* Today the Church marks the 104th anniversary of the last of the apparitions of Ou...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Tuesday of the 28th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of Blessed Carlo Acutis

October 12, 2021

Rom 1:16-25, Ps 19, Lk 11:37-41

 

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

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The following points were attempted during the homily:

* “I am not ashamed of the Gospel,” St. Paul emphatically tells the Romans at the beginning of today’s epistle. Those are very strong words for someone who, at a human level, might have had many reasons to be shamefaced and silent about the Gospel. After all, he was scourged, beaten with rods stoned, shipwrecked, ambushed, hunted down and imprisoned on account of the Gospel. He was crisscrossing the globe to preach preposterously that a publicly executed carpenter from an obscure village not only had risen the dead and was alive but was also the Lord and Son of God. Jesus’ crucifixion, he knew, was a laughing stock for Greeks and an embarrassing scandal for Jews. But despite it all he stressed that he was not ashamed of the Gospel, in all its paradoxical details, because he knew that, however improbable it might seem to human wisdom, it was in fact the power and wisdom of God.

* It’s important that we confront and with God’s grace overcome any embarrassment we have over our faith. There are many in the Church who are ashamed of the Gospel. In the context of an aggressive secularism that is pushing hedonism, materialism, individualism, and rationalistic empiricism, and often mocks Church teaching as the morality of unenlightened, antediluvian cavemen, many feel somewhat humiliated to give witness to their Catholic faith. Many Catholics have been made to feel that the Gospel is not only “bad news,” but on occasion even ridiculous. Catholics after all believe that we adore and eat God himself in Holy Communion, even though to the world all we’re doing is consuming cheap bread and wine. We believe, according to Jesus’ own words, that the path of happiness is spiritual poverty instead of riches, purity instead of sexual profligacy, spiritual hunger instead of satiety, meekness instead of strength, and persecution instead of popularity. We believe in praying for persecutors, forgiving those who hate us seventy times seven times, and turning the other cheek. We believe that we shouldn’t commit even the slightest sin even if we were able to win the whole world. And then we get to the really controversial issues for people today! We believe that the Pope is infallible — he cannot make a mistake, ever — on something that he teaches to be definitively held by all the faithful on something we need to believe (faith) or do (morals) to please God and enter into his life. We believe that even though men and women are equal in dignity before God, only men are capable of being ordained priests.We believe that no one should morally be able to take the life of the unwanted child growing within her through abortion. We believe that everyone should remain chaste and sexually abstinent until marriage, and that all sex outside of marriage is sinful. We believe that even though almost everyone, including Catholic married couples, use some form of contraception at some point in their marriages, it is still wrong. We profess to love those with same-sex attractions while at the same time saying that they should never, ever act on those attractions by engaging in same-sex sexual activity. Contrary to gender ideology, we believe that God made us male and female in his image and that is part of his plan. These are among the issues that make many members of Christ’s flock sheepish with regard to living and sharing the faith. It’s often some priests,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Chapel of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY

28th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B

October 10, 2021

Wis 7:7-11, Ps 90, Heb 4:12-13, Mk 10:17-30

 

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

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The following text guided the homily: 

* As a young king of the Lord’s people, Solomon pleased the Lord very much. One night God appeared to Solomon and told him to ask for whatever he wanted from the Lord. Solomon could have requested and likely received anything he wanted. Solomon asked not for power, or money, or health, or a long life, or even a beautiful queen, but for wisdom. In today’s first reading, Solomon shows us that, to some degree, he was already wise in asking for what he did. “I preferred [wisdom] to scepters and thrones, and I accounted wealth as nothing in comparison with her. … I loved her more than health and beauty, and I chose to have her rather than light, because her radiance never ceases.” He valued her more than political power, than all the money in the world, than physical vigor and looks, even than light. He wanted help from God to make right judgments, to choose well, to order his decisions on earth in accordance with the way things really are, the way God made them.

* This is the prayer we all asked for in the responsorial psalm today. We begged God, “Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain wisdom of heart.” We asked him for the grace to help us see how, even on our hardest days, God was there, forming us, helping us, passing on to us a wisdom not of this world. “Make us glad,” we asked, “for the days when you afflicted us, for the years when we saw evil.” This type of wisdom would reach its culmination, St. Paul would tell us, in “Christ Crucified,” who is a “ stumbling block for Jews and foolishness for Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Christ Crucified would become the wisdom of God and he would call us to follow him along that cruciform path of wisdom. He would tell us, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his Cross daily, and follow me” (Lk 9:23). Jesus wants us, like Solomon, to prefer this wisdom to scepters and thrones, to wealth and the things of the world, to health and beauty, even to light. God wants to give us this wisdom. But this wisdom doesn’t come on the cheap. We have to treat it like the pearl of great price, the treasure buried in a field, worth sacrificing all we have to get it — because this relationship with God and the way it changes us is worth far more than everything else in the world.

* This helps us to understand the great drama that takes place in today’s Gospel in Jesus’ encounter with the Rich Young Man. He was a virtuous youth. He had kept the commandments of the Lord from a young age. He was concerned about the deepest and most important questions, like the one he asked Jesus, “What good must I do to inherit eternal life?” He already had some faith in Jesus, coming to him not just as a rabbi who knew a lot but as a “Good Teacher,” whose whole bearing intrigued him and inspired him to approach and ask about the way he should live in order to live for ever. He also recognized that, despite all his material wealth and moral uprightness, there was something missing in his life. His heart yearned for more and greater. He grasped that the life God intended for us had to consist in so much more than merely not breaking the Decalogue. And so he asked in St. Matthew’s account of the same scene, “What do I lack?” Jesus looked at him with love and gave him the challenging, brutally honest, direct answer to his question, “You lack one thing. Go, sell what you have,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. Agnes Church, Manhattan

20th  Sunday after Pentecost, Extraordinary Form

October 10, 2021

Eph 5:15-21, Jn 4:46-53

 

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 St. Paul exhorts the Ephesians and each of us not to waste the gift of life God has given us but to take full advantage of the time God has given us, the means of salvation with which he has blessed us, the opportunities he has placed before us to do something great, holy, life-giving and life-saving. Most people, including most Christians, do not live with sufficient intentionality. We sleepwalk through human existence, being changed by our environment more than we change it, adapting ourselves to what everyone else is doing, wasting time doing things that in the final analysis matter little. St. Paul is trying to wake us up, to help us to mature spiritually, and to make full use of the time we have. “Watch carefully then how you live,” he tells us today, “not as foolish persons but as wise, making the most of the opportunity, because the days are evil.” We can live in one of two ways, he says: as fools or by God’s wisdom. We can cozy up to the fallen things of the age, or we can be the seeds of sanctification. And St. Paul is calling us to live like Christ did in the midst of what Jesus called a “wicked and perverse generation,” as Paul did in the midst of the sins of his own epoch, as the Popes have incessantly urged us to do in the modern world, and as Christians as salt of the earth and light of the world are called to do in every age.

* And so St. Paul gets practical: “Therefore,” he says, “do not continue in ignorance, but try to understand what is the will of the Lord.” Real wisdom is doing God’s will, seeking his kingdom, and hallowing his name. To live ignorantly is to do just as one pleases, without reference to the holy will of God, as if God doesn’t really exist or doesn’t care how we spend our day or dedicate our life. To live wisely is constantly to discern what God is asking in the concrete situations and places in which he has placed us, to be alert to his presence, accompanying us, guiding us, strengthening us, to understand and do his will and help him save and sanctify the world.

* Paul therefore continues, “Do not get drunk on wine, in which lies debauchery.” That’s both a concrete counsel against getting hammered as well as a metaphor to depict what it means to live foolishly. When we get drunk, we are impaired not just from driving well but from living as God wants. Why do people get drunk? Some get drunk because they like the stuff, but lack self-control, and one drink soon becomes four, or eight or ten. Others do so because they don’t like something else, and rather than turning to God and others for help to face situations of stress and anxiety, they try to escape with a bottle. And we know that once we’re drunk, our guard is down to say no to things to which we would never consent otherwise. That’s why St. Peter would say to the first Christians, “Stay sober and alert. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for [someone] to devour. Resist him, solid in your faith” (1 Pet 5:8-9). Drunkenness is the opposite of spiritual vigilance and many of us get inebriated by imbibing too much worldliness, getting addicted to entertainment and distractions, setting our hearts on Friday and Saturday night rather than on Sunday, eating, drinking and being merry as if human life is a cocktail party with nothing really important going on outside the club. Others get intoxicated and cockeyed over politics,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), Vigil

October 9, 2021

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.9.21_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 the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday, as we eavesdrop on his famous dialogue with the young adult Christian tradition has dubbed the Rich Young Man.

* The Rich Young Man was a good man. He had kept the commandments of the Lord from a young age. He was concerned about the deepest and most important questions, like the one he asked Jesus, “What good must I do to inherit eternal life?” He already had some faith in Jesus, coming to him not just as a rabbi who knew a lot but as a “Good Teacher,” whose whole bearing intrigued him to approach and ask about the way he should live in order to live for ever. He also recognized that, despite all his material wealth, despite even his moral goodness, there was something missing in his life. His heart yearned for more. He knew he was called to something greater. The life God intends for us consists, he realized, in so much more than merely not breaking the Decalogue. And so he asked in St. Matthew’s account of the same scene, “What do I lack?” Jesus looked at him with love and gave him the challenging, brutally honest, direct answer to his question, “You lack one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me!” It was a highly paradoxical answer. What he lacked was precisely thathe had too much. He lacked total detachment from substitutes so that he could attach himself to the Absolute. He had previously lived a good life, but Jesus was now calling him to greatness. He already had some faith in Jesus as a “good Teacher” who was reflecting the goodness of God alone, but Jesus was now calling him to an upgrade in faith, a total commitment. He had previously kept the “second tablet” of the Ten Commandments, all about love of neighbor, but now Jesus was calling him to a much more radical following of both tablets of Decalogue: to love his neighbor to the point of using all his possessions to care for them and to loving God to the point of accounting him more valuable that all his stuff and following him on the path of total-self-giving love.

* St. Therese of Lisieux taught that we grow in the spiritual life by subtraction, not by addition. Once a novice sighed in her presence, “When I think of everything I still have to acquire!” The Little Flower replied, “You mean, tolose! … You are wanting to climb a great mountain and the good God is trying to make you descend it; he is waiting for you at the bottom in the fertile valley of humility.” The Rich Young Man needed to learn this lesson. Unfortunately he wasn’t ready for the challenge that spiritual perfection requires because he had so many possessions that owned him. He looked at the path of holiness as something he could add on to what he already had, whereas it was an emptying precisely so that Christ could fill him. The Lord is always asking us to let go of many of his gifts in order to help us to recognize that the greatest gift of all is the Giver.

* The Rich Young Man got the answer to the question that was erupting from the depths of his being, buthe didn’t like it. In fact, St. Mark tells us, “He was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.” When given a choice between Jesus and his money, the young man chose the money,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Friday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

October 8, 2021

Joel 1:13-15.2:1-2, Ps 9, Lk 11:15-26

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.8.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Twenty-three years ago today I was ordained a transitional deacon at St. Peter’s in the Vatican and the day after, which was Friday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time, I had the privilege for the first time to proclaim the Gospel and to preach, at a Mass at the Chapel of Our Lady of Fatima in the Dorothean Sisters’ Casa Fatima across from the North American College in Rome. The Gospel was today’s and for that reason I’ve always had a special affection for it and a particular gratitude to God, because it’s not easy to preach on. So right from the beginning I had a chance to put into practice what I was instructed to do at my diaconal ordination, to “believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practice what you teach,” I had to do so explicitly with far greater dependence on God, far greater cooperation with the Holy Spirit. Whenever I have had the chance to preach, therefore, on Jesus and Beelzebul, it always reminds me of the summons God gives to turn to him for the light of faith, not just on this anniversary but every time I preach.

* Let’s get into the scene. Over the last two days we have been listening to Jesus teach us about prayer and how to relate to God the Father. He instructed us to ask the Father with confidence not to let us fall when tempted and to prevent us from the evil one. He then taught us about the importance of persevering in prayer with the Parable of the Neighbor asking for Three Loaves at Midnight so that we may learn how to persevere in the Christian life until the end. Today’s readings focus on that necessary perseverance in life because of the way that devil persistently tries to tempt us to choose to divide ourselves from the love of God and the love of neighbor.

* We see in the Gospel the opposition Jesus faced by those who refused to believe in him or his works. By this point, Jesus had already worked all of the miracles foretold by Isaiah (61) that would mark the advent of the Messiah: he had proclaimed the Gospel to the poor, healed the sick, made the blind see, the deaf hear, the mute speak, the lame walk. He had liberated the captives from the snatches of the devil by countless exorcisms. He had fed multitudes. He had walked on water. He had done so much. The people who didn’t believe in him couldn’t deny the facts, but they could give another interpretation: he wasn’t working them by God’s power but by the devil’s, an attempt to justify their lack of faith in him and their opposition. Jesus, in his words to them, spoke about the work of the devil and the main thrust of his own saving work. The work of the devil is to divide and the main focus of Jesus’ work is to save us and sanctify us by bringing us into communion with God and in Him with others. Christ during the Last Supper prayed for a unity among us resembling the Trinity. He did that through his incarnation, his life, his passion, death and resurrection. We prayed in the Gospel verse about what he how he had said that when he would be lifted up on the Cross, he would draw all men to himself — and out of the clutches of the evil one. We remember from St. Mark’s Gospel the two essential aspects involved in life with Jesus: he calls us to be with him and to send us out. The devil wants to divide us from Jesus and prevent our going out as effective, ardent apostles.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Thursday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary

October 7, 2021

Mal 3:13-20, Ps 1, Lk 11:5-13

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.7.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today Jesus continues to respond to the question of yesterday, to teach us how to pray. Yesterday, when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he began by teaching them that the secret of prayer is to approach God as a loving Father. Once we do, almost everything flows. We begin to seek the glory and sanctification of his name and the building of his kingdom not only because we love Him but also because we know that, as his sons and daughters, we share that name and are heirs of that kingdom. Once we relate to him as a Loving Father then we trust in his providence to give us each day what we need and in his mercy to forgive us when we err because he loves us more than he detests the sins that hurt us and wound our relationship with him. When we relate to him as a Loving Father, we trust him not to put us in a position in which we’ll fail the ultimate test but rather to challenge us and help us to meet those challenges that are beyond what we think are possible.

* Today Jesus continues his responding to our request to teach us how to pray by illustrating for us how to persevere in prayer. He gives us a parable based on middle eastern customs of hospitality. Especially during the summer months when the sun is particularly brutal, many Jews would travel at night and so it was not unheard of that a guest would arrive at your home — in the days before phones, texts and emails and also before affordable and efficient postal systems — unannounced at night, famished after a long journey. Because bread was baked normally in the morning, it’s possible that all the bread had already been eaten. That’s why you’d go to your neighbors to ask if they had anything to share. The second thing to understand about middle eastern culture is that their doors were open all day long but when they were shut and locked, that meant that the entire family and all their animals had gone to bed. They’d sleep together in an interior part of the house to stay warm during the typical nocturnal middle eastern radiational cooling. To get up to answer the door when a neighbor was knocking at midnight meant that one would likely be stepping on one’s children and animals and waking everyone up. It’s understandable that one would want to wait to share bread until the morning. But Jesus says that because of the perseverance of the neighbor, “I tell you, if he does not get up to give him the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.” Jesus mentions this as a lesson in prayer precisely in order to contrast that motivation with one of God. He was saying, “If a neighbor would eventually give in because of harassment, think about how God will respond out of love?”

* That led Jesus to say, “I tell you, ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you, for everyone who asks receives, everyone who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks the door will be opened.” It’s an incredible promise that we should receive with faith. Everyone who asks receives. Notice that he doesn’t say that one will receive, find or have the door opened immediately. He also doesn’t say that one will receive and find exactly what one expected to find. But he does promise God will respond, precisely because God is a loving Father who always responds first and foremost by giving himself.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Church of the Holy Family, New York

Memorial Mass for Jesse Reno

October 6, 2021

Job 19:1.23-28, Ps 25, Rev 21:1-7, Mt 25:31-46

 

To view a video of the Mass, please click below:

 

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

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The following text guided the homily: 

* The first time I met Jesse Reno was April 4, 2015. Rusty had asked if I knew where there might be a quieter Easter Vigil in the City and I invited him to come to Sacred Heart Convent over on 51st and 10th, where I would be celebrating for the Sisters of Life. He asked if Jesse could come and I said of course. I had just arrived in the city a month before. I knew Rusty from various professional circles but didn’t know Juliana, Rachel or Jesse at all. As I was preparing for the beginning of the Vigil, where there’s a need to bless the Easter Fire and the Paschal candle, it became clear to me I’d need an altar server. The Sisters of Life have a general policy, lest anyone mistakenly think they’re angling for priestly ordination, not to serve, even when a priest needs six hands to do what the Mass requires. When I saw Jesse, I asked him, “Would you mind giving me a hand at the Mass?” I didn’t realize at the time that he was Jewish and had never served Mass before. He replied without hesitation, “Sure, if you show me what I need to do.” And so I taught him how to hold the missal and later to help me with the lighting of the incense from the Easter fire. For a first timer, he served like one of the seraphim. Later during the readings at Mass, as we retraced salvation history from the creation of the human person, to the sacrifice of Isaac, to the exodus and the passage through the Red Sea, to the prophecies of Isaiah, Baruch and Ezekiel, to many psalms and eventually St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans and St. Matthew’s account of Jesus’ resurrection, he paid better attention than his father and even the Sisters. I found out only after the Mass, when I thanked him, that he was Jewish. I marveled. I asked him, “But you served anyway?” He replied with a smile, “You just asked if I could give you a hand. You didn’t ask if I was Catholic.” For him it was simple: He knew that there was a need and he was happy to help.

* In today’s Gospel, Jesus presents the Christian teaching on how to live in view of death and judgment. He says that ultimately we will be judged by love. Jesus says he will take personally and never forget the way we care for others: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me. … Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” Rusty told me, “Matthew 25 captures my son’s life, which was to care for others, especially the wounded people who were his friends. It makes me want to cry in a good way, thinking of him.”

* If you’ve had the chance to look at the various remembrances posted on Jesse’s obituary on dignitymemorial.com, it’s easy to see how all those who were in need of food and clothing, who were new to Jesse’s environs, who were sick or otherwise in need were met by Jesse with great compassion and generosity. Karl said, “He was loyal and generous to a fault. He would literally give you the shirt off his back.” Eleanor stated, “He was an ultimate listener. When I felt like there was no one to talk to or any one that could relate, he would be there with no expectations just openly giving of his time and energy.” Logan added,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Wednesday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of St. Bruno and of Bl. Marie Rose Durocher

October 6, 2021

Jon 4:1-11, Ps 86, Lk 11:1-4

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.6.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Yesterday we pondered the example of Mary of Bethany sitting at Jesus’ feet, allowing him to feed her. She had chosen the better part and the one thing necessary, the activity more important than all others. Today we see Jesus sitting at the feet of his Father in prayer. His example of prayer brought the disciples to ask him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John [the Baptist] taught his disciples.” Jesus had already taught them much about prayer by his parables describing the need to pray with perseverance, patience, humility, purity of intention, faith, without show and in his name. He had taught them much by his example of prayer, constantly going out at night or early in the morning to pray. But they were asking for some direct instruction, to have Jesus open up to them the mystery of intimacy with God.

* It’s noteworthy that Jesus didn’t reply to their request by teaching them a posture of prayer, telling them to kneel, close their eyes and fold their hands. He didn’t instruct them to go through breathing exercises or other techniques to empty themselves of distractions. He didn’t indicate how to listen to God, like Eli taught Samuel to say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” He didn’t give them a meditation method. He didn’t even given them a formula of vocal prayer, something seen by the fact that Luke’s rendition of the Lord’s Prayer is different from Matthew’s, a sign that Jesus wasn’t passing out “magic words” as much as trying to pass on an attitude, a whole approach to prayer; he wasn’t imparting a quid ores (a what you are to say when you pray) but a qualis ores (a who you are as you pray), as St. Augustine was wont to say. And what was that approach?

* Everything can be summarized by the first word he taught them: Abba! He taught them to turn not to some cosmic life-force way out in the heavens, or to some slavemaster or judge or apathetic Creator, but to a “Father.” This is the open secret of what Jesus teaches us about prayer. We see his own prayers: “I give you praise, Father, … for having revealed these things to the merest of children.” “I thank you, Father, for having heard me. I know that you always hear me.” “Father, glorify your name!” “Father, take this chalice away from me!” “Father, forgive them!” “Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit.” Jesus’ prayers were all to the Father, to whom he turned with great trust and love. In teaching us how to pray, Jesus was trying to form us to enter into his own divine filiation and to pray with loving confidence. He told us in the Sermon on the Plain that if earthly parents aren’t sadists but know how to give good things to their children, so God the Father won’t give us a stone when we ask for bread, or a poisonous eel when we ask for fish, but will give himself — the Holy Spirit — no matter what we ask for. To pray as Jesus taught is to enter into that relationship of love with the Father. Everything else Jesus taught us about prayer flows from that.

* He instructs us to pray, “Hallowed by thy name,” and “Your Kingdom come,” which means that we are seeking God’s glory not our own, his kingdom not ours. St. Matthew’s inclusion of Jesus’ words “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” is just a magnification of seeking God’s kingdom and the glory of his name. Jesus is helping us to remember that prayer should first be about God,