Catholic Preaching

By Father Roger LandryReligion & Spirituality Christianity

Catholic Preaching episodes

November 04, 2025 The Eucharistic Mission of Priests, Retreat for the Priests of the Diocese of Charleston South Carolina, November 3, 2025
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Annual Retreat for the Priests of the Diocese of Charleston
Sand Dunes Resort, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
November 3, 2025
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.3.25_The_Eucharistic_Mission_of_the_Priest_1.mp3
The post The Eucharistic Mission of Priests, Retreat for the Priests of the Diocese of Charleston South Carolina, November 3, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
23 min
November 01, 2025Deacons and the Call to Holiness, All Saints Day, November 1, 2025
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Saint Paul Center, Steubenville, Ohio
Deacon Conference on “Scripture, the Soul of Sacred Theology: The Gospel of Matthew”
All Saints Day 2025
November 1, 2025
Rev 7:2-4.9-14, Ps 24, 1 Jn 3:1-3, Mt 5:1-12

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.1.25_Homily_1.mp3

The following text guided the homily:
Today on this great solemnity, we first celebrate the saints. We celebrate the great and famous saints we know about, like the holy deacons Saints Stephen, Philip, Lawrence, Ephrem, Francis of Assisi, Vincent of Zaragoza, Romanos, Alcuin, and Francis di Paola. We celebrate also the countless quiet saints, the “saints next door,” among whom we pray are numbered our deceased loved ones and those who passed on to us the gift of the faith, who died in the love of the Lord and now live in His love. The saints are the multitude who have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” as we heard in today’s first reading, and brought those white baptismal garments “unstained into the everlasting life of heaven,” like they were instructed to do on the day of their baptism. These are the “great multitude that no one could count, from every nation,” who have not just been called “children of God” through baptism, as St. John told us in today’s second reading, but have lived as children of God throughout their lives, seeking to love God with all their mind, heart, soul and strength and to love their neighbor as Christ loved them. They are the ones who, as we prayed in the Psalm, have longed to see God’s face, who, by God’s mercy, had sinless hands, pure hearts, and desires not for vain things but for the things of God. These are the ones who have ascended “the mountain of the Lord,” the eternal Jerusalem, and who “stand in his holy place.” These are the ones who are singing today in that holy place the beautiful endless song glimpsed in the passage from Revelation, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
But All Saints Day is not just about celebrating those who have lived truly successful lives, who have received and responded to the love of God and made the eternal Hall of Fame. It’s also meant, in having us focus on them, to spur us to imitate them so that one day November 1 will in the future be our day, too. As the traditional American Gospel hymn intones, “O Lord, I want to be in that number when the saints go marching in.” St. John Paul II reminded us as we began the third Christian millennium that everything the Church does is meant to help us become holy, to help us respond to what the Second Vatican Council called the “universal call to holiness.” St. John Paul II wrote, “Since Baptism is a true entry into the holiness of God through incorporation into Christ and the indwelling of his Spirit, it would be a contradiction to settle for a life of mediocrity, marked by a minimalist ethic and a shallow religiosity. To ask catechumens: ‘Do you wish to receive Baptism?’ means at the same time to ask them: ‘Do you wish to become holy?’ It means to set before them the radical nature of the Sermon on the Mount: ‘Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Mt5:48).” He continued, “This ideal of perfection must not be misunderstood as if it involved some kind of extraordinary existence, possible only for a few ‘uncommon heroes’ of holiness. … The time has come to re-propose wholeheartedly to everyone this high standard of ordinary Christian living: the whole life of the Christian community … must lead in this direction.” On All Saints Day each year the Church indeed reproposes wholeheartedly this high standard of the Christian life, that God calls us not to mediocrity, or minimalism, or shallowness, but to the perfection of love. All Saints Day is meant to inspire us to will the means to that end, to choose the narrow road that leads to life, and to invoke the powerful intercession of the saints so that we will indeed be among the great multitude in white garments who will ascend the Lord’s mountain and fulfill our dignity made in the image and likeness of God who is holy, holy, holy.
This is a special call for the ministers of the Church. When I preach retreats for priests and seminarians, I normally try to get their attention early by proclaiming emphatically, “God has not called you to be priests.” After a pregnant pause, as I wait for someone to start the chant, “Crucifige eum! Crucifige eum!,” I then add, “He has called you to be a holy priest or no priest at all.” I could say the same thing to each of you: God has not called you just to be a deacon. He’s called you to become a saint as a deacon. The Sacrament of Holy Orders is holy not just because it is ordered to our thrice holy God and the holy things of God, but also because it has the power of sanctification if we’re open to it, if we’re cooperative with the graces. The intensified call of every deacon to holiness is emphasized in the Vatican’s Directory for the Ministry and Life of Deacons, where the Church reminds us: “By the Sacrament of Holy Orders, deacons receive a ‘a new consecration to God’ through which they are ‘anointed by the Holy Spirit and sent by Christ’ to serve God’s people and ‘build up the Body of Christ.’ From this stems the diaconal spiritualitywith its source in what the Second Vatican Council calls ‘the sacramental grace of the diaconate.’ In addition to helping the deacon to fulfil his functions, this also affects his deepest being, imbuing it with a willingness to give his entire self over to the service of the Kingdom of God in the Church. … The deacon is called to live a holy life because he has been sanctified by the Holy Spirit in the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Orders and has been constituted by the same Spirit a minister of Christ’s Church to serve and sanctify mankind.”
The three-fold service of the deacon — as a minister of the Word, of the altar and of charity — all are meant to sanctify him and make him an instrument for the sanctification of others in the Church. Holiness is the perfection of charity and, as we see in an unforgettable way in the life of the deacon St. Lawrence, deacons, through their care for the poor, for the sick, for the homebound and those in nursing homes, for the imprisoned, are able to grow in their conformity to Christ the Deacon who called all of us, but in a particular deacons, to become great through serving the rest in imitation of him who came to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. Likewise it’s straightforward to grasp how service at the altar is meant to sanctify. As the Directory for the Ministry and Life of Deacons underlines, “The liturgy is the source of grace and sanctification. Its efficacy derives from Christ the Redeemer and does not depend on the holiness of the minister. This certainty should cause the deacon to grow in humility since he can never compromise the salvific work of Christ. At the same time it should inspire him to holiness of life so that he may be a worthy minister of the liturgy.” To be able to serve the Eucharistic Lord Jesus so intimately, to hold aloft the chalice of his Precious Blood one drop of which is enough to save the whole world, to be able to receive the Lord first after the priest and then have the awesome privilege to hold him in his hands and give him — give God — to others is one of the greatest gifts any human being can have. As long as it doesn’t become routine, as long as faith is maintained and his first love remains ardent, we’re bound to become more and more like the Lord Jesus whom we adore, receive, handle and give to others, in imitation of the way Mary’s and Joseph’s holiness grew through their daily interaction with Jesus in Bethlehem, Egypt and Nazareth.
But within this Deacons Conference on Scripture as the Soul of Sacred Theology, I would like to spend more time pondering the connection between the Word of God and Christian and ministerial holiness. This morning in the Vatican, Pope Leo proclaimed St. John Henry Newman the 38th Doctor of the Church and co-patron, with St. Thomas Aquinas, of the Church’s educational mission. In a homily the future Cardinal entitled, “Holiness Necessary for Future Blessedness,” he said, “The great end of all revelation is holiness. The Word of God is given us, not to make us learned, but to make us holy.” Scripture is meant not just to inform but to transform, to make us more like Jesus, the incarnate Word. That happens when we hear the Word of God as a word-to-be-done. Elsewhere our new ecclesial doctor said, “We cannot understand the Word of God unless we obey it. To read it with a heart of obedience is the way to see its power and light.” And that power and light has a chance to bring us to holiness, happiness and heaven. Newman told us, “The Word of God, when planted within us, is a seed which grows up unto eternal life; it takes root and becomes part of ourselves.” And the holier we become, the more like Christ, like Mary, like the saints, the better we will understand the Word of God and the greater its power and light. Saint John Henry preached, “The pure in heart alone see God, and therefore they alone can interpret His Word aright.” This transformation is what’s meant to occur in the life of everyone in whose hands is placed the Book of the Gospels and who is instructed: “Receive the Gospel of Christ whose herald you now have become. Believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practice what you teach.” We are summoned to practice the Gospel of Christ, to live it full of faith and to share it as the treasure it is. The way we will become powerful preachers of the Word of God is by the way we become its living commentaries.
This connection between the Word of God and sanctity has been underlined by the Church throughout her history. St. Gregory the Great taught 1400 years ago, viva lectio est vita bonorum, that the life of the good (the saints) is a living reading of God’s word. Before Christians, before Ministers of the Word are summoned to proclaim the Gospel to every creature’s ears, they called to manifest it to their eyes. The word of God most accurately when it is enfleshed in those who have received it in faith and made it the key to their life. Pope Benedict XVI focused on this connection 15 years ago this month in his apostolic exhortation on the Word of God in the life and mission of the Church, Verbum Domini. He wrote, “The interpretation of sacred Scripture would remain incomplete were it not to include listening to those who have truly lived the word of God: namely, the saints. … The most profound interpretation of Scripture comes precisely from those who let themselves be shaped by the word of God through listening, reading and assiduous meditation. It is certainly not by chance that the great currents of spirituality in the Church’s history originated with an explicit reference to Scripture. I am thinking for example of Saint Anthony the Abbot, who was moved by hearing Christ’s words: ‘If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me’ (Mt 19:21). No less striking is the question posed by Saint Basil the Great in the Moralia: ‘What is the distinctive mark of faith? Full and unhesitating certainty that the words inspired by God are true … What is the distinctive mark of the faithful? Conforming their lives with the same complete certainty to the meaning of the words of Scripture, not daring to remove or add a single thing.’ Saint Benedict, in his Rule, refers to Scripture as ‘a most perfect norm for human life.’ Saint Francis of Assisi – we learn from Thomas of Celano – ‘upon hearing that the disciples of Christ must possess neither gold, nor silver nor money, nor carry a bag, nor bread, nor a staff for the journey, nor sandals nor two tunics … exulting in the Holy Spirit, immediately cried out: ‘This is what I want, this is what I ask for, this I long to do with all my heart!’ Saint Clare of Assisi shared fully in the experience of Saint Francis: ‘The form of life of the Order of Poor Sisters – she writes – is this: to observe the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ So too, Saint Dominic ‘everywhere showed himself to be a man of the Gospel, in word as in deed,’ and wanted his friars likewise to be ‘men of the Gospel.’ The Carmelite Saint Teresa of Avila, who in her writings constantly uses biblical images to explain her mystical experiences, says that Jesus himself revealed to her that ‘all the evil in the world is derived from not knowing clearly the truths of sacred Scripture.’ Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus discovered that love was her personal vocation by poring over the Scriptures, especially Chapters 12 and 13 of the First Letter to the Corinthians; the same saint describes the attraction of the Scriptures: ‘No sooner do I glance at the Gospel, but immediately I breathe in the fragrance of the life of Jesus and I know where to run.’ Every saint is like a ray of light streaming forth from the word of God. … The Holy Spirit who inspired the sacred authors is the same Spirit who impels the saints to offer their lives for the Gospel. In striving to learn from their example, we set out on the sure way towards a living and effective hermeneutic of the word of God.” The saints are not just those who can better interpret the Word of God but are, in some ways, the most powerful interpretation.
If this is true, and it is, then we have to confront head on with faith the summons Jesus gives us today in the Words that began the Sermon on the Mount. In the beatitudes, Jesus shows us his path, he reveals to us the way to holiness in day-to-day existence, and he wants to help us to choose it. This path that Jesus describes stands in stark contrast to the road that most of the people in the world, including most of those we’re privileged to serve, believe will lead to human fulfillment now and later. The world tells us that to be happy, we have to be rich. Jesus says, rather, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they will inherit the kingdom of heaven.” The world tells us we’ll be happy when we don’t have a concern in the world. Jesus says, on the other hand, “Blessed are those” who are so concerned with others that “they mourn” over their own and others’ miseries, “for they will be comforted” by him eternally. Worldly know-it-alls say, “You have to be strong and powerful to be happy.” Jesus, in contrast, retorts, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” The spiritually worldly shout increasingly more each day that to be happy, we have to have all our sexual fantasies fulfilled. Jesus, however, says “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” The world preaches, “You’re happy when you accept yourself,” and espouses an “I’m okay, you’re okay,” brand of moral relativism. Jesus says, though, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for holiness for they will be satisfied.” The world says, “You’re happy when you don’t start a fight, but finish it,” and lives by the philosophy of might-makes-right in both interpersonal and international contexts, but Jesus says “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy” and “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” And our culture increasingly declares, “You’re happy when everyone considers you nice, when you don’t have an enemy in the world,” while Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” and “Blessed are you when people revile you, persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account,” for your reward will be the kingdom of heaven. Jesus makes plain for us the path to holiness. It’s the path he himself took. But it’s a path few people choose to take. It’s a path honestly that few deacons, priests and bishops really take. Today Jesus is calling us to follow him on that path, and all the saints are praying for us to have the trust and courage to do so. As St. John Paul II preached to young people 25 years ago on the Mount of the Beatitudes in Galilee, “The words of Jesus may seem strange. It is strange that Jesus exalts those whom the world generally regards as weak. He says to them, ‘Blessed are you who seem to be losers, because you are the true winners: the kingdom of heaven is yours!’ … To put your faith in Jesus means choosing to believe what he says, no matter how strange it may seem, and choosing to reject the claims of evil, no matter how sensible or attractive they may seem. … In the end, Jesus does not merely speak the Beatitudes. He lives the Beatitudes. He is the Beatitudes. Looking at him you will see what it means to be poor in spirit, gentle and merciful, to mourn, to care for what is right, to be pure in heart, to make peace, to be persecuted. … He does not say simply, ‘Do what I say.’ He says, ‘Come, follow me!’”
Today, Jesus wants to reinvigorate us in our baptismal vocations, in our diaconal and priestly vocations, in our universal vocation to holiness. Whenever he calls us to anyone, he wills the means for us to fulfill that summons. As he tells us again today live in the Gospel, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied,” he himself comes to feed that hunger and satiate that thirst. That’s what he does in the Eucharist, which is the food of the saints. When we receive Jesus worthily and well, we enter into an intense communion with him who is holy, holy, holy, as he seeks to sanctify us from the inside out. Worshipping Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, inside of us after Holy Communion and outside of us in Eucharistic Adoration, is the best means to prepare us for what the saints now eternally enjoy. That’s why Saint Carlo Acutis, canonized less than two months ago, called the Eucharist, “My highway to heaven,” because it is the most direct and fastest route to communion with Christ’s holiness on earth and to eternal communion with him in the Father’s house. So let us ask the Lord as we get ready to receive him to stir up in us a ravenous hunger and insatiable thirst for holiness, so that we might resolve with all our hearts to live by Jesus’ high standards of ordinary Christian living, to live by the special calling we have received in the Sacrament of Holy Orders, and, through the Eucharist, speed along the highway to heaven to that place where Saint Carlo, John Henry, Stephen, Philip, Lawrence, Ephrem, Francis, Vincent, Mary, Joseph, Paul, all the angels and saints are praying for us, and together with Triune God, are waiting for us.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 RV 7:2-4, 9-14
I, John, saw another angel come up from the East,
holding the seal of the living God.
He cried out in a loud voice to the four angels
who were given power to damage the land and the sea,
“Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees
until we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.”
I heard the number of those who had been marked with the seal,
one hundred and forty-four thousand marked
from every tribe of the children of Israel.
After this I had a vision of a great multitude,
which no one could count,
from every nation, race, people, and tongue.
They stood before the throne and before the Lamb,
wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.
They cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne,
and from the Lamb.”All the angels stood around the throne
and around the elders and the four living creatures.
They prostrated themselves before the throne,
worshiped God, and exclaimed:“Amen. Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving,
honor, power, and might
be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”
Then one of the elders spoke up and said to me,
“Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?”
I said to him, “My lord, you are the one who knows.”
He said to me,
“These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress;
they have washed their robes
and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.”
Responsorial Psalm PS 24:1BC-2, 3-4AB, 5-6
R. (see 6) Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.
The LORD’s are the earth and its fullness;
the world and those who dwell in it.
For he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the rivers.
R. Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.
Who can ascend the mountain of the LORD?
or who may stand in his holy place?
One whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean,
who desires not what is vain.
R. Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.
He shall receive a blessing from the LORD,
a reward from God his savior.
Such is the race that seeks him,
that seeks the face of the God of Jacob.
R. Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.
Reading 2 1 JN 3:1-3
Beloved:
See what love the Father has bestowed on us
that we may be called the children of God.
Yet so we are.
The reason the world does not know us
is that it did not know him.
Beloved, we are God’s children now;
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is.
Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure,
as he is pure.
Alleluia MT 11:28
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest, says the Lord.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel MT 5:1-12A
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain,
and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him.
He began to teach them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you
and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.
Rejoice and be glad,
for your reward will be great in heaven.”

The post Deacons and the Call to Holiness, All Saints Day, November 1, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
29 min
October 31, 2025Great Sorrow and Constant Anguish, 30th Friday (I), October 31, 2025
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Saint Paul Center, Steubenville, Ohio
Deacon Conference on “Scripture, the Soul of Sacred Theology: The Gospel of Matthew”
Mass for Ministers of the Church
Friday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
October 31, 2025
Rom 9:1-5, Ps 147, Lk 14:1-6
To listen to an audio recording of tonight’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.31.25_Homily_1.mp3

The following text guided the homily:
At the beginning of our time together as we dedicate ourselves to Scripture as the Soul of Sacred Theology, we begin the first five verses of St. Paul’s three chapters in his Letter to the Romans on the relationship between Christians and the Jews. This is the second part of his Letter to the Romans, which we have been meditatively pondering for almost three weeks. In the first 8 chapters, we’ve meditated on what it means to be justified before God and how the Holy Spirit seeks to bring that about. Chapters 9-11 are about God’s plan for the justification of the Jewish people, particularly those who — unlike Mary, Mary Magdalene, the disciples and apostles — had not recognized Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah. Unfortunately, the Church only gives us two liturgical days every two years to pray about these important chapters, because tomorrow is All Saints Day with its proper readings, we have only one day over two years. This year it’s particularly important we do so, however, because on Tuesday, we marked the 60th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions and especially to our Jewish elder brothers and sisters, themes that St. Paul grappled with in these chapters.
St. Paul begins by stating how difficult the subject was for him. He was a Jew by ethnicity and formerly a proud Pharisee by profession. He loved Judaism and his fellow Jews and was so grateful for all the ways God has blessed him and his people through the Covenants. That’s why he begins the whole discussion saying: “I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie; my conscience joins with the Holy Spirit in bearing me witness that I have great sorrow and constant anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.” Great sorrow and constant anguish in his heart. A sorrow and anguish so penetrating that he would have basically done anything for them to have come to faith in the long-awaited Messiah, including being cut off from Christ the Vine so that they could be part of him. He loved them with the heart of Christ. He pondered all that God had given them: descendancy from Jacob, adoption as God’s children, his holy shekinah or glory, the covenants (with Noah, Abraham, Moses, David), the law, the worship at the Temple written out by him in Leviticus, the promises, the patriarchs and the genealogy of the Messiah. But his heart was filled with anguish because despite all that preparation, they had not embraced the fulfillment of their Jewish faith in Jesus, in whom their is filiation, glory, the new and eternal covenant, the Legislator, true worship and the down payment on all God’s promises and all the hopes God had given the Jews. This anguish is what led him to become all things to all people, including to his fellow Jews, so that each might come to Christ. Later in these three chapters he will describe God’s plans for the salvation of the Jews, and it’s fundamentally, through seeing God’s goodness working among the Gentiles, they might come to embrace it and be saved. But Paul, and God, wishes all of us have a similar anguish of heart for the salvation of others, the anguish that beat in Paul’s heart and in Christ’s Sacred Heart.
This sorrow and anguish has characterized the Church’s prayer throughout the centuries as the Church has grappled with the subject of the way the Jewish people fit into Christ’s saving work, what is the connection between the Covenants God sealed with the Jews and the New and Eternal Covenant Christ is and made in his own flesh and blood. Catholics as individuals have not always gotten it right. The Church as a whole sometimes didn’t ponder sufficiently what the Holy Spirit led St. Paul to understand. That’s why Nostra Aetate in the Second Vatican Council is such a big deal. That’s why it’s worth celebrating 60 years after, with gratitude, in a big way. That’s why we need to appreciate its theological and moral synthesis and live it.
Pope Leo spoke about the importance of the anniversary on Tuesday and underlined how it was based on the questions St. Paul grappled with in Rom 9-11. We must not forget,” he said, “how Nostra Aetate actually developed. Initially, Pope John XXIII commissioned Cardinal Augustin Bea to present a treatise to the Council describing a new relationship between the Catholic Church and Judaism. We can say, therefore, that the fourth chapter, dedicated to Judaism, is the heart and generative core of the entire Declaration. For the first time in the history of the Church, we [had] a doctrinal text with an explicitly theological basis that illustrates the Jewish roots of Christianity in a well-founded biblical manner. At the same time, Nostra Aetate (n. 4) takes a firm stand against all forms of antisemitism.”
The two basic affirmations we find in paragraph 4 is that the Jews were not responsible as a people for Jesus’ crucifixion — all of us sinners are — and that antisemitism, sometimes flowing from the scapegoating of Jews, must be condemned. This is so important because we’re living in an age of increasing anti-Semitism nationally and internationally, of terrorist attacks on Jews and synagogues, of conceptual attacks on Jews under the guise of anti-Zionism from those on both the political left and the right, of the rise of Neo-Nazis in Germany and other places, and even Holocaust deniers within the lifetime of Shoah survivors. As Catholic clergy, with the Holy Father, we have to take a firm, resolute, united and defiant stand against anti-Semitism. George Weigel, in a powerful column this week, gave us clearly the theological and moral reason: “Antisemitism is a betrayal of Christianity, for Jew-hatred is Christ-hatred. Why? Because Jesus of Nazareth makes no sense without understanding him as he understood himself: as a son of God’s covenant with the Jewish people. … Christianity makes no sense without its Jewish parent, as the Christian New Testament makes no sense without the Hebrew Bible. Absent its foundation in, and tether to, Judaism, Christianity would have been another short-lived mystery cult from the ancient world. … Early Christians understood this. So even in its childhood, historically speaking, Catholicism decisively rejected the heresy of Marcionism, which scorned the Old Testament and created a repugnant caricature of the God of the Hebrew Bible.” It needs to be a source of great sorrow and constant anxiety that our Jewish brothers and sisters are suffering in this way and that this hatred is also Christ-hatred, Mary-hatred, Joseph-hatred, Peter-hatred, and ultimately God-hatred.
Over the intervening six decades since the Council, the Church has developed its teaching on the relationship between Christians and Jews. In her documents and instructions, the Church has articulated clearly that “the Catholic Church neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews.” This is partially, I think, a result of some of the forced conversions by the State during times like the Spanish Inquisition and the consequent reasonable distrust among Jews. But it’s also out of reverence for the irrevocable Covenant our faithful God made with the Jews and, therefore, their ongoing mysterious role in salvation history. As St. Paul will ponder later in these chapters, and as Father Pablo Gadenz pondered at length in his great doctoral dissertation, Called from the Jews and the Gentiles, Pauline Ecclesiology in Rom 9-11, the refusal of many Jews to accept Jesus as their Savior was the occasion for the expedited evangelization of the Gentiles, and the conversion of the Gentiles, over time, is meant to entice the Jews to accept the mercy of God incarnate in Christ. We do care, like St. Paul did, for the Jews’ coming to the fulfillment of all the Messianic hopes, but our means are prayer, witness, friendship and conversation. We hope to bring them from good to better, from what was concealed in the Old Testament to what has been revealed in the New in Christ Jesus.
Sorrow and anguish. We see that in play in the Lord Jesus in today’s Gospel, and it led him to urgent action. Someone with dropsy — or edema, swelling caused by fluid retention — was there as a plant, St. Luke says that “the people there were observing him carefully” to test whether Jesus would cure the man on the Sabbath. St. Luke tells us that Jesus took the bait and said to the hosts “in reply” to this man’s being in front of him, “Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath or not?” He didn’t hesitate to teach about the importance of every person and the urgency that we should have to love him or her and the anguish and sorrow we should feel when others objectify them, are indifferent to them, or otherwise offend their God-given dignity. After asking whether it was lawful to cure on the Sabbath — in other words, whether it was possible to do good deeds on the Lord’s day! — Jesus healed the man. The principle Jesus gave was that no one would ever allow one of his children or even animals who fell into a cistern to remain trapped and isolated on the Sabbath but rather would work on the Sabbath to rescue him. Jesus, with merciful affection, wouldn’t allow this man one more day to remain with dropsy. Jesus’ analogy highlights that we always do something with urgency for someone or something we really care about, someone who matters to us, whom we love, and we all recognize that such authentic love for that person would not be a violation of God’s will or law. The problem for the Pharisees was that they just didn’t really care about the man with dropsy. They didn’t love him. Jesus acts with the same urgency for us and our salvation, because he cares for us more than a parent cares for a child or a farmer cares for his animals. And he wants us to imitate that loving concern, that urgency, since many times we procrastinate on charity toward our neighbor because we really don’t love.
This type of anguish is essential to the life of the Church. This type of sorrow and concern for those who are in need of Christ is meant to characterize the life of every minister of the Gospel. The Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, released 60 years ago this December, begins not just with the words “Gaudium et spes” but right afterward, “luctus et angor.” It’s translated, “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ; indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts.” I’d just like to pull out those words “luctus et angor,” because those are precisely taken from St. Paul today, the sorrow and anguish, because that — with the joy and hope that comes from the Gospel — is how we as Christians, and especially we as ordained deacons, are supposed to respond pastorally to the world. That’s what leads us to urgent action. At diaconal ordination, we are ordained in the person of Christ the Deacon, the one who came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many, the one who taught us not to fight for the best seats at table but to fight for the towel. Deacons are icons of the charity of Christ, of his pain and anguish over the sufferings of others, of his joy, so that his joy may be in us and our joy perfected, and of his hope that we will stake our life on all of his promises. We’re celebrating today a Mass for Ministers of the Church and its written to encompass all those in Holy Orders, starting from the foundational sacrament of the Diaconate. We turned to God at the beginning of this Mass and asked, “O God who have taught the ministers of the Church not to be served but to serve their brothers and sisters, grant, we pray, that they may be effective in action, gentle in ministry and constant in prayer.” We’ll pray later over the offerings, “Holy Father, whose Son chose to wash the disciples’ feet and so set us an example, accept, we pray, the gifts of our service and grant that, offering ourselves as a spiritual sacrifice, we may be filled with a spirit of humility.” And after Communion, we will implore, “Grant, O Lord, to your servants, whom you have replenished with heavenly food and drink, that, for the sake of your glory and the salvation of believers, they may be found faithful as ministers of the Gospel, of the Sacraments and of charity.” Jesus the Deacon, Jesus the Eternal High Priest, in this Mass, as he speaks to us, as we enter into the Gospel, as we prepare to receive him, wants to strengthen us so that we may be true servants full of joy and hope, full of appropriate sorrow and anguish, as we work with urgency for the sake of divine glory and the salvation of all.

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 ROM 9:1-5
Brothers and sisters:
I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie;
my conscience joins with the Holy Spirit in bearing me witness
that I have great sorrow and constant anguish in my heart.
For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ
for the sake of my own people,
my kindred according to the flesh.
They are children of Israel;
theirs the adoption, the glory, the covenants,
the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises;
theirs the patriarchs, and from them,
according to the flesh, is the Christ,
who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
Responsorial Psalm PS 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise your God, O Zion.
For he has strengthened the bars of your gates;
he has blessed your children within you.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
He has granted peace in your borders;
with the best of wheat he fills you.
He sends forth his command to the earth;
swiftly runs his word!
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
He has proclaimed his word to Jacob,
his statutes and his ordinances to Israel.
He has not done thus for any other nation;
his ordinances he has not made known to them. Alleluia.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
Alleluia JN 10:27
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord;
I know them, and they follow me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel LK 14:1-6
On a sabbath Jesus went to dine
at the home of one of the leading Pharisees,
and the people there were observing him carefully.
In front of him there was a man suffering from dropsy.
Jesus spoke to the scholars of the law and Pharisees in reply, asking,
“Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath or not?”
But they kept silent; so he took the man and,
after he had healed him, dismissed him.
Then he said to them
“Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern,
would not immediately pull him out on the sabbath day?”
But they were unable to answer his question.
The post Great Sorrow and Constant Anguish, 30th Friday (I), October 31, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
23 min
October 29, 2025The Holy Spirit’s Help In Striving To Enter the Narrow Gate, 30th Wednesday (I), October 29, 2025
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Chapel of The Pontifical Mission Societies, St. Petersburg, Florida
Wednesday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
October 29, 2025
Rom 8:26-30, Ps 13, Lk 13:22-30

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.29.25_Homily_1.mp3

The following points were attempted in the homily:
“Lord, will only a few be saved?,” someone from the crowd asked Jesus today. He didn’t reply by satisfying the person’s curiosity, because he didn’t come from heaven to earth to answering the interrogatives of inquiring minds. He had come from heaven to earth to save us, and so he responded not by saying how many are saved by how any is saved. “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.” The word translated as “strive” is the Greek word to “agonize.” To be saved, to enter the Kingdom, to get to Heaven, in other words, we need to agonize, like Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane, to conform our will to the Father’s. We need to work harder than an undrafted free agent gives everything he’s got in an NFL training camp to make the cut. The width of the narrow door to Heaven is the span of a needle’s eye, the girth of the cross, something that is anything but easy to pass through.
Over the last several decades, people have gotten the notion that the Christian life is easy. Most people think, rather, that everyone gets to Heaven — except perhaps those who don’t like us, serial killers, public smokers and those people we don’t like. Such an attitude is a diabolical ambush. Jesus never taught that the Christian life is a cakewalk. He who is the Gate of the sheepfold tells us that we need to agonize to enter into him. Jesus said these words as he was on the road to Jerusalem, and we know what happened when he got to Jerusalem. He entered into his agony, the agony that led to our salvation and opened up the narrow door. But we need to be willing to follow him along that path of sacrificial love.
Jesus says in the Gospel today that many will seek to enter through the narrow door but not make it. They will be left outside the door, pleading, “We ate and drank in Your presence and You taught in our streets,” and, as Jesus added in a similar passage in the Sermon on the Mount, exclaiming, ‘Did we not prophesy in Your name, and cast out demons in Your name, and do many miracles in Your name.” Jesus says that God will then reply, “I never knew you” (Lk 13:25-27; Mt 7:21-23). Jesus is emphasizing that it’s not enough to have heard Him speak. It’s not sufficient to have eaten and drunk with Him, even the Holy Eucharist. It’s not adequate to proclaim the Gospel in His name, do exorcisms or even work miracles. After all, Judas Iscariot did all of these things, but he never really knew Who Jesus was. We need to enter into intimate friendship and communion with Him. We need to follow Him not just on the outside, but on the inside. We need to become His true friend. We need to agonize to let go of everything in our life that’s not ordered to God, that’s not compatible with the life of faith. We need to squeeze humbly into Jesus and live in full-time loving friendship with him.
If this were simply a thing of willpower, we would have reason to despair. But it’s not. St. Paul tells us that God responds to our weakness. He sends the Holy Spirit to teach us “how to pray as we ought.” The Holy Spirit helps us to pray not by putting words on our lips but by changing who we are as we pray, so that we might pray conscious that we are beloved sons and daughters of God crying out “Abba, Father.” He transforms us so that we can live as we pray and confidently follow Jesus along the narrow path, so that we will be confident that all our agony, all are sufferings will be worth it.
That’s why St. Paul immediately adds, “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” Omnia in bonum. All things work out for the good, not for everyone, but for those who love God, who are responding to the call to live according to God’s purpose. This is a very important distinction. He doesn’t say that everything — including sufferings, pain and agony — work out for the good for those who don’t love God, who live not according to his will and purpose but their own. That’s not because God punishes those whom he loves and created who freely refuse to live according to the way God made them and purposed them. They don’t work out for the good because, as we know from life, our sufferings can make us either better or bitter, depending upon whether we unite them to God. For those who don’t live in God’s love, often they’ll interpret their sufferings — physical sufferings, emotional, familial, spiritual, or religious sufferings like persecution — as punishments or castigations from God. They’ll cry out asking why or complaining that God allowed them or their loved ones to suffer. And the devil will use these agonies to alienate them from God. Those who live in the love of God, however, who trust in his purposes, recognize, with the help of the Holy Spirit, that God is a loving Father and will bring good even out of evil, like he brought the greatest good out of the greatest evil on Calvary.
St. Paul continues by saying that God the Father’s will is to conform us to the image of his Son. He predestined us for this before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. He called us to this vocation, he justified us by his grace through baptism and the other sacraments, so that through this he may glorify us in this world and forever. All of this is the work of conforming us to the “image of his Son,” which includes conforming us to him in his agony and suffering so that we might rise with him in glory.
The Lord wills us all to be saved. Jesus tells us at the end of the Gospel, prophecy of the Church’s mission work, that not only will Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the prophets be in the kingdom but also those from the east and the west, the north and the south, all of whom, like the patriarchs and prophets, agonized to follow God in faith as he revealed themselves to him. God will give us all the help he knows we need, just like he helped them, to squeeze through the narrow gate, but we need to use our freedom to heed what Jesus says to us today, to agonize to follow him through the gate to life. Today as he teaches us, as he feeds us, as he works the greatest miracle of all, he reminds us that it is not enough for salvation to receive all of this externally, but that he wants us, nourished by this help, to become his true friends, to know him intimately, to enter fully into him, and to agonize with him for the salvation of all those on the east, west, north and south. And with the Father he sends the Holy Spirit to us to strengthen us in our weakness to pray this Mass and then to live this Mass.

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1
ROM 8:26-30
Brothers and sisters:
The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we ought,
but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.
And the one who searches hearts
knows what is the intention of the Spirit,
because he intercedes for the holy ones
according to God’s will.
We know that all things work for good for those who love God,
who are called according to his purpose.
For those he foreknew he also predestined
to be conformed to the image of his Son,
so that he might be the firstborn
among many brothers.
And those he predestined he also called;
and those he called he also justified;
and those he justified he also glorified.
Responsorial Psalm
PS 13:4-5, 6
R. (6a) My hope, O Lord, is in your mercy.
Look, answer me, O LORD, my God!
Give light to my eyes that I may not sleep in death
lest my enemy say, “I have overcome him”;
lest my foes rejoice at my downfall.
R. My hope, O Lord, is in your mercy.
Though I trusted in your mercy,
Let my heart rejoice in your salvation;
let me sing of the LORD, “He has been good to me.”
R. My hope, O Lord, is in your mercy.
Gospel
LK 13:22-30
Jesus passed through towns and villages,
teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem.
Someone asked him,
“Lord, will only a few people be saved?”
He answered them,
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate,
for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter
but will not be strong enough.
After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door,
then will you stand outside knocking and saying,
‘Lord, open the door for us.’
He will say to you in reply,
‘I do not know where you are from.’
And you will say,
‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’
Then he will say to you,
‘I do not know where you are from.
Depart from me, all you evildoers!’
And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth
when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God
and you yourselves cast out.
And people will come from the east and the west
and from the north and the south
and will recline at table in the Kingdom of God.
For behold, some are last who will be first,
and some are first who will be last.”
The post The Holy Spirit’s Help In Striving To Enter the Narrow Gate, 30th Wednesday (I), October 29, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
12 min
October 28, 2025Following the Apostles Saints Simon and Jude in Catholic Life and Mission, October 28, 2025
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Church of St. Mary and Our Lady of Grace, St. Petersburg, Florida
Staff Enrichment Day for TPMS-USA
Feast of SS. Simon and Jude, Apostles
October 28, 2025
Eph 2:19-22, Ps 19, Lk 6:12-16

To listen to an audio recording of this homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.28.25_Homily_1.mp3

The following text guided the homily:
St. Paul in today’s first reading tells the Ephesians and us that our Christian existence is “built upon the foundation of the Apostles.” Today’s providential feast of the apostles SS. Simon and Jude during our staff enrichment day gives us a chance to ponder our continuation of the mission Jesus entrusted to them and grounding that mission more firmly on the foundation of what the Lord did and continues to do through these two apostles. I’d like to frame our life and mission within the context of what the Lord did in their life. We can ponder five different aspects.
The first thing we can examine is the theme of our calling. The apostles’ vocation, we see, was born from Christ’s prayer. Jesus had pulled an all-nighter praying to his Father about whom he should choose and praying for those he would choose. His prayer was not just a single invocation, but a persevering intercession. This prayer for those whom he would call continued throughout his public life and we can presume even after his Ascension. During the ordination rite of the Last Supper we see how fervently Jesus prayed to the Father. “I pray for them,” he said aloud, “I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me because they are yours. … Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are. … I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. … Consecrate them in the truth. … I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.” And then he prayed for the apostles’ work to be fruitful, for all “those who will believe in me through their word,” and prayed for their salvation, “I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, … that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.” Jesus’ ongoing prayer would take on a very specific form, as we would see in Jesus’ Holy Thursday dialogue with St. Peter, “Simon, Simon, behold Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed that your [singular] own faith may not fail; and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers.” It’s important regularly for us to take the time to recall with gratitude and wonder that our Christian vocation, likewise, has its beginning in Jesus’ prayer. Just as much as Jesus prayed all night and then called Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, Simon, Jude, and Judas Iscariot,” so he has prayed and called each of us. He has prayed for each of us, to keep us in the Father’s name, to unite us to God and to each other, to consecrate us in the truth of God’s word, in the truth of Jesus’ own consecration to the Father. Jesus has prayed for us that our faith may not fail and that we will strengthen the faith of each other and those we serve. Jesus continues to pray for us. He’s praying for us at this Mass. He’s praying for us when we have difficulties in our missionary work. His persevering prayer for us is an example for us to persevere in prayer together with him during it as well.
The second theme is our discipleship. When Jesus came down the mountain, St. Luke tells us, he chose the twelve from among the “disciples,” from among those who were already as the Greek word disciple means Jesus’ “students,” who were zealously following him, who were living by faith, who were hearing his words and seeking to put them into practice. Together with Jesus’ prayer, their faith was the crucial job qualification. Jesus didn’t raid the rabbinical schools for the greatest young Scriptural scholars of the day who could more easily preach and teach. He didn’t turn to the ascetical Pharisees whose whole life was dedicated to trying to live the Mosaic law to its perfection, to those who were already praying, tithing, fasting far more than was explicitly required. He turned to common, ordinary folk. He raided wharves and tax offices, he found people under fig trees and those who were lousy private investigators tailing him to discover where he lived. For the most part, that’s always been Jesus’ way. St. Paul would say to the Corinthians, “Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God.” The saints were celebrate today are, in many ways, the least of the apostles. St. Luke put them at the very end of the list, named just before the notorious traitor Judas Iscariot. In some ways, they’re still the least. The tomb of any apostle — not to mention two apostles — would ordinarily be expected to be noteworthy, but both of their remains, brought to Rome by Crusaders lest their tombs be destroyed by Muslims, rest quietly together in the southern transept of St. Peter’s Basilica, at the altar of St. Joseph, underneath the Blessed Sacrament. Whereas St. Peter has a 70-ton bronze baldachin sculpted by Bernini and a massive dome-shamed tiara designed by Michelangelo over his relics just a few hundred feet away, SS. Simon’s and Jude’s tomb remains such that most visitors to St. Peter’s have no idea where it is. But there’s a beauty here, all the same, because as disciples called by Jesus, it was never truly about them, but about him, who remains on top of them in the Blessed Sacrament. Jesus called them because of their faith, because they knew how much they needed him and needed to learn from him. The criterion of discipleship even overcame human differences. Simon is labeled a “zealot,” from the Hebrew verb qana, which means that he was from among those most opposed to the Romans and the one whose first reaction, for example, to the calling of the tax collector Matthew, should have been fisticuffs. But as Pope Benedict said back in 2006, in Jesus’ calling the first apostles, “It was people who interested him, not social classes and labels.” He added, “This is clearly a lesson for us who are often inclined to accentuate differences and even contrasts, forgetting that in Jesus Christ we are given the strength to get the better of our continual conflicts.” It’s key for us routinely to examine the state of our discipleship, to sit at Jesus the Master’s feet as zealous students and let him form us like he formed the Twelve. Many of the issues that plague the Christian life and apostolate begin when we forget that we’re called, like every one of the baptized, to holiness, to be a faithful follower, to keep all the commandments out of love for God and others, to hang on Jesus’ words, to become true Good Samaritans, to practice what the Lord has sent us to preach. Many of the issues also begin when we fail to relate to each other as fellow disciples, strengthening each other’s faith by the fire of our own, rejoicing at the other’s spiritual gifts given for the building up of the Church, and helping each other stay on the narrow way when we notice that a brother or sister is beginning to drift or is lost. Just like Jesus called the 12 not to be 12 independent students but to form a college, so he’s called each of us, at this time, in this place, to form community of one heart and mind, to be with him and with each other, conscious of the fact that we need each other just as much as our bodies need eyes, hands and feet.
The third thing we learn from today’s feast is about mission. After choosing the 12, Jesus named them “apostles,” literally “those sent.” They were to become his ambassadors, his envoys, in spreading his kingdom, in heralding the Good News. In the Psalm today, we prayed, “Their message goes out through all the earth,” and we know that through 11 of these 12 men, Christ’s message did radiate throughout the ancient world. They couldn’t keep the message in. They were impelled to share Jesus, and his words, and the joy of the Christian life with others. They would walk for months to far off territories. We continue their work. Imagine what the apostles could have done with the resources we have at our disposal, not just our education, but our computers, phones, AI, not to mention our car and especially planes. Today’s feast is a chance for us to be renewed, as missionaries supporting missionaries across the globe, in the apostolic zeal with which SS. Simon and Jude crisscrossed the world.
The fourth thing to ponder today is the fact that they were martyrs. They were effective in proclaiming the faith because they were willing to die for it, they were willing to proclaim it even when it made others uncomfortable to the point of homicidal rage. They were willing to follow Jesus along the path of the grain of wheat. They were willing to lose their lives so as to save it. They were prepared to pick up their Cross each day and be crucified upon it. They recognized, as Jesus himself taught them, that they were, in the final analysis, not cursed but blessed to be persecuted, reviled and hated because of him. Their feast allows us to examine anew for what or Whom are we willing to die? Are we prepared to die to ourselves, to the old Adam in us, so that Christ may live? Are we prepared to pay the supreme sacrifice for him who paid the supreme sacrifice for us? The apostles effectively preached the Gospel because it was obvious that the words they were proclaiming, they believed, were worth living for and worth dying for. Our apostolic effectiveness is likewise dependent on this type of martyrion, this witness, this body language, which is meant to be the most eloquent message we’ll ever preach.
And the last thing today’s feast of the two apostles teaches us is about the power of intercession. St. Jude is most famous among Catholics not because of the letter ascribed to him, not because of any particular apostolic feats. It’s because of his prayer as the patron of hopeless causes. This devotion began because pilgrims to his original tomb in Syria, before it was translated to Rome, received answers to their least likely prayers. St. Bernard of Clairvaux and St. Bridget of Sweden both had experiences in prayer that led them to promote devotion to St. Jude as the patron of the impossible. We’ll never know why in God’s wisdom St. Jude, and not St. Simon or St. Mary of Bethany or someone else has been the conduit through whose intercession God has worked so many wonders in response to prayer, but the larger point is that God wants all of us to be intercessors. He wants us to pray for people, especially for those entrusted to us and those who entrust to us their prayers. St. John Paul II said that the Christian life is meant to be distinguished above all by the “art of prayer” (Novo Millennio Ineunte). Jesus instructed us to pray without ceasing, banging on the door of God like the importune widow before the judge or the neighbor seeking bread. This is one of the most beautiful, and most important aspects, of our life as Christians, and something that truly gives meaning to our faithful recitation of the liturgy of the hours. The most important work we do at TPMS-USA is to pray to the Harvest Master for laborers for his harvest, interceding for laborers in the Lord’s fields wherever they are.
Today as we prepare for the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we bring all of the prayers entrusted to us, and pray also with perseverance for each other, that on this great feast day the Lord will renew each of us in gratitude for his prayerfully calling us, that we will grow in holiness as his disciples, in zeal as his missionaries and apostles, in courage as martyrs whether white or red, and in constant intercession for the needs of those entrusted to us and of the Church. SS. Simon and Jude were present during the Last Supper when Jesus took bread and wine into his hands and totally changed it into himself. They were present when Jesus said, “Do this in memory of me.” And that’s precisely what they did, celebrating the Mass in imitation of the reverence with which Jesus celebrated that first Eucharist. We’re called with them to enter into Jesus’ own consecration, so that, having become fully united with him, his message may go out through us through all the earth and one day we and those we serve may come to experience eternal friendship in that kingdom in which SS. Simon and Jude and all the saints now rejoice.

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 eph 2:19-22
Brothers and sisters:
You are no longer strangers and sojourners,
but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones
and members of the household of God,
built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets,
with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.
Through him the whole structure is held together
and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord;
in him you also are being built together
into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
Responsorial Psalm ps 19:2-3, 4-5
R. (5a) Their message goes out through all the earth.
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day pours out the word to day,
and night to night imparts knowledge.
R. Their message goes out through all the earth.
Not a word nor a discourse
whose voice is not heard;
Through all the earth their voice resounds,
and to the ends of the world, their message.
R. Their message goes out through all the earth.
Gospel lk 6:12-16
Jesus went up to the mountain to pray,
and he spent the night in prayer to God.
When day came, he called his disciples to himself,
and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles:
Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew,
James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew,
Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus,
Simon who was called a Zealot,
and Judas the son of James,
and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
The post Following the Apostles Saints Simon and Jude in Catholic Life and Mission, October 28, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
24 min
October 28, 2025 Looking at Artificial Intelligence Through Catholic Anthropology and Ethics, TPMS Staff Enrichment Day, October 28, 2025
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Staff Enrichment Day
The Pontifical Mission Societies USA
St. Petersburg, Florida
October 28, 2025

To listen to an audio recording of this presentation, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.28.25_Catholics_and_AI_1.mp3

To download the slides of the presentation, please click below:
10.28.25 Looking at Artificial Intelligence Through Catholic Anthropology and Ethics

The post Looking at Artificial Intelligence Through Catholic Anthropology and Ethics, TPMS Staff Enrichment Day, October 28, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
59 min
October 27, 2025Standing Erect Through Life According to the Holy Spirit, 30th Monday (I), October 27, 2025
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
TPMS Office, St. Petersburg, Florida
Monday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Votive Mass for those Suffering
October 27, 2025
Rom 8:12-17, Ps 16, Lk 13:10-17

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.27.25_Homily_1.mp3

The following points were attempted in the homily:
To understand the contrast between Jesus and the leader of the synagogue with regard to the crippled woman in the Gospel, it is worthwhile to grasp the categories given to us by St. Paul in the first reading. And to do that, it’s important to understand it in context with what has come before in the first two weeks of this biennial month-long gift of the Letter to the Romans at daily Mass.
We have already seen the distinction between those who view justification by grace received in faith working through love from those who depend fundamentally on their own works. On Saturday, we had the beginning of Chapter 8 of the Letter to the Romans, which is the fulcrum not only of this letter but in my opinion of the Christian life, the distinction between life according to the flesh and life according to the Holy Spirit. St. Paul advanced the same distinction we have had in previous chapters, between living according to ourselves in our fallenness or living by God and the power of his life. In today’s passage, St. Paul advanced the argument even more, saying there is a difference between a spirit of slavery and one of adoption, between fear of God and filiation. The chief of the synagogue in the Gospel, like many of the scribes the Pharisees, basically approached the covenant as a bunch of laws rather than a relationship with a Legislator. The scribes and Pharisees scrupulously wanted to keep to the letter of every prescription, but in doing so they missed the weightier aspects and put the focus on themselves. Even though they knew that they couldn’t take the Sabbath off from caring for their animals, they failed to exercise similar charity toward a sick woman, criticizing Jesus for caring for her on the Sabbath. They so lacked a spirit of filiation that they failed to see in her a sister rather than a stranger, as someone far more valuable than all the oxen and donkeys in the world. They also failed to grasp the mind and heart of the Legislator, who happens to be God the Father, blind to how he would never want us to give up acts of charity in order to honor him. We heard yesterday at Sunday Mass that we’re called to love God with all our mind, heart, soul and strength and, sharing God’s love, love our neighbor with all our mind, heart, soul and strength. Such acts of love are not only permitted on the Sabbath, but they are particularly made for the Sabbath!
This woman was crippled for 18 years and could not look up. Not only did she have a serious physical malady, but she also had a spiritual problem, as the Fathers of the Church commented: she just couldn’t look up toward God. Her eyes were constantly toward the ground, to earthly difficulties. She came into the synagogue because she still wanted God. She still knew she needed Him. It was on that Sabbath that Jesus, seeing her completely incapable of standing erect, said to her, “Woman, you are liberated from your infirmity.” Jesus didn’t use her name. He used a vocative that recalled the beginning of creation, one that foretold how we would call his mother on Calvary. He was going to treat this woman with the care and compassion with which he wanted to treat every woman: “be free of your infirmity.” He laid his hands on her head, at once she stood up straight, and began to glorify God, not just because she was cured, but because she was now able to raise up her heart, with her back and with her chin and eyes and hopes above. That’s what life according to the Holy Spirit is meant to make possible.
The sabbath was made for the human person precisely to free us from the spirit of slavery, from the servitude of life according to the flesh. Four times God told the Jews through Moses that he had given the commandment to keep holy the Lord’s day because they “were once slaves in Egypt” (Deut 5:15, 15:15, 24:18, 24:22). It’s meant to help us to live in right relationship with God and others, to be freed from being owned by our work or what work can lead to. This is why Jesus declared that curing the woman on the sabbath was not only possible but “fitting,” since the Sabbath is a day of liberation! The synagogue chief and many others totally failed to grasp this. And out of fear of the Lord who gave them the Sabbath, they neglected love of neighbor. Jesus came to liberate us from this slavery and help us live as sons in Him, the Son. He came to do for us something even greater than what was done for the woman in the Gospel, curing us of our infirmities and helping us to stand erect before God and to glorify him, lifting up our hearts and seeking with the power of the Holy Spirit the things that are above.
The mind-blowing beauty of this path of divine filiation is given to us at the end of today’s first reading when we realize — consistent with the adoption policies in the Roman empire in which the adopted child would assume all of the rights and responsibilities of natural children, and, if the adoptee was the oldest, all of the rights of primogeniture — that having been adopted by God the Father, we become “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” But there’s one condition on this inheritance: “…if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” For us to enter into the full inheritance, we must suffer, because without suffering we won’t grow to full stature as spiritual children, we won’t “put to death the deeds of the body.” St. John, in his first letter, testified to this reality when he said, “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. … Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Through living by the power of the Holy Spirit as adopted sons and daughters of God, we become gradually like him. And to be glorified with Christ, we must be exalted as the Son of God was on the Cross, which is a sign of a love that endures anything for God and for others. We need to suffer precisely so that the glory of God the Father’s love flowing through us as his adopted children might be revealed, the glory we got a glimpse of not simply by Christ’s curing the woman in the Gospel but by his willingness to suffer — and in fact, eventually be killed — in order to cure her on the Sabbath.
Today Jesus wants to renew us in our spiritual of filiation so that together with him we might cry out, by the power of the Holy Spirit, “Abba Father!” He wants to heal of us our infirmities that keep us bent down toward earth so that we can stand erect in his presence, lift our our heads, hearts, and lives, and glorify God the Father together with him. And it’s here that we receive, as a down payment on eternity, our greatest inheritance of all, God the Father’s greatest treasure, Who becomes our spiritual food!

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 Rom 8:12-17
Brothers and sisters,
we are not debtors to the flesh,
to live according to the flesh.
For if you live according to the flesh, you will die,
but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body,
you will live.
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
but you received a spirit of adoption,
through which we cry, “Abba, Father!”
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit
that we are children of God,
and if children, then heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ,
if only we suffer with him
so that we may also be glorified with him.
Responsorial Psalm PS 68:2 and 4, 6-7ab, 20-21
R. (21a) Our God is the God of salvation.
God arises; his enemies are scattered,
and those who hate him flee before him.
But the just rejoice and exult before God;
they are glad and rejoice.
R. Our God is the God of salvation.
The father of orphans and the defender of widows
is God in his holy dwelling.
God gives a home to the forsaken;
he leads forth prisoners to prosperity.
R. Our God is the God of salvation.
Blessed day by day be the Lord,
who bears our burdens; God, who is our salvation.
God is a saving God for us;
the LORD, my Lord, controls the passageways of death.
R. Our God is the God of salvation.
Alleluia Jn 17:17b, 17a
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Your word, O Lord, is truth;
consecrate us in the truth.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel Lk 13:10-17
Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath.
And a woman was there who for eighteen years
had been crippled by a spirit;
she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect.
When Jesus saw her, he called to her and said,
“Woman, you are set free of your infirmity.”
He laid his hands on her,
and she at once stood up straight and glorified God.
But the leader of the synagogue,
indignant that Jesus had cured on the sabbath,
said to the crowd in reply,
“There are six days when work should be done.
Come on those days to be cured, not on the sabbath day.”
The Lord said to him in reply, “Hypocrites!
Does not each one of you on the sabbath
untie his ox or his ass from the manger
and lead it out for watering?
This daughter of Abraham,
whom Satan has bound for eighteen years now,
ought she not to have been set free on the sabbath day
from this bondage?”
When he said this, all his adversaries were humiliated;
and the whole crowd rejoiced at all the splendid deeds done by him.
The post Standing Erect Through Life According to the Holy Spirit, 30th Monday (I), October 27, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
11 min
October 26, 2025Fighting, Running and Praying for a Crown of Righteousness, 30th Sunday (C), October 26, 2025
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY
Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
October 26, 2025
Sir 35:12-14.16-18, Ps 34, 2 Tim 4:6-8.16-18, Lk 18:9-14

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.26.25_Homily_1.mp3

The following text guided the homily:
In the next few weeks, I’ll have a chance to help lead three different retreats, one for deacons, another for priests and the third for diocesan directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies. One of the classic practices when one goes on a retreat is to meditate about one’s death. Since we never know the day or the hour when Christ will come for us, pondering the end of our life helps us better to learn how to live, to focus on what really matters in life, to prioritize what’s truly important, and to order our choices wisely. It’s a practice that the Church encourages all the faithful every November — which begins Saturday — when we ponder the four last things of death, judgment, heaven and hell. As helpful as meditating upon our death is, there’s an even more useful practice: entering into the holy thoughts and prudent preparations of the saints as they prepare for death. Today, in the second reading, we are given the privilege to read what is essentially St. Paul’s last will and testament. He was in a Roman prison, preparing for execution and writing what he thought might be his final words to his spiritual son St. Timothy. He said he was already being poured out as a sacred sacrificial offering to God — like the Romans used to finish their sacrifices by pouring wine on the ground to the pagan gods — and that the time of his departure from this life was near. In one phrase, one of the most powerful and memorable lines in Sacred Scripture and human history, he summarized all he had sought to do in his life since his conversion outside the gates of Damascus. He wrote. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” As we think of our life and the time of our eventual departure from it, St. Paul would be urging us, like he urged the young St. Timothy, to make these three things our priorities, so that we might echo them throughout our life and at the hour of our death.
The first thing he writes is, “I have fought the good fight.” He points to the truth that the Christian life isn’t easy. It isn’t supposed to be. It’s a battle. The word he uses for fight is the Greek word for agony. He says he’s agonized through the “good and beautiful agony.” St. Paul heroically and agonizingly battled through multiple imprisonments, beatings, stonings, shipwrecks, labors, sleepless nights, hunger and thirst, anxiety for the Churches, betrayals, abandonments and more (2 Cor 11:23-28). But he never gave up the fight. He competed like a champion. And he wanted to help strengthen St. Timothy. He was indicating that in the Christian life, we must struggle against our weaknesses and failings, we need to war against the devil, principalities and powers and unending infernal attempts to turn us from God, we must contend against the temptations, obstacles and difficulties others and human life in general can place in our way to make it harder to live and share our faith. Despite all the blows that he took in life, St. Paul told St. Timothy in today’s passage, “The Lord stood by me and gave me strength.” The same Lord will stand by us. That’s why St. Paul could write to St. Timothy at the end of his first letter, “Fight the good fight of faith” (1 Tim 6:12). The Christian life is meant to train us to be fighters, to be strong and resilient, to be heroic like Jesus, like Paul, like the martyrs young and old throughout the centuries, because we recognize that God is standing by us to give us strength and that we can do all things in him who strengthens us (Phil 4:13). St. Paul wants St. Timothy and each of us to be as stout in the spiritual life as championship boxers are in the ring. And we’re living at a time in which that strength is ever needed.
The second thing St. Paul declares is, “I have finished the race.” One of the reasons why St. Paul was able to do so much for the Lord was because he always had a sense of urgency. He recognized that the Christian life is not one where we sleep until noon, spend the day leisurely, and take as many naps as we wish. The Christian life isn’t a lazy saunter following in Jesus’ footsteps with plenty of time for diversions and no urgency to prioritize the things of God. Rather, the Christian life is a race! It’s a life-long marathon. St. Paul sped all over the ancient world, throughout the Middle East, Asia and parts of southern Europe. While most of us are not called to anywhere near the same total on the pedometer as he amassed, we are called to live our faith with similar tenacity, priority and promptness. We’re called to hasten to God, to hasten to serve others, to hasten to grow in and share our faith. Just as St. Paul said and showed caritas Christi urget nos (2 Cor 5:14), the love of Christ and of others is meant to motivate us to persevere in the marathon of Christian life, up hills and down into valleys. The same Lord who gave St. Paul spiritual stamina will sustain us, because he’s running the race right alongside of us to the heavenly Jerusalem.
The third thing St. Paul states is the most important: “I have kept the faith.” This expression means far more than that the apostle was rejoicing that he hadn’t in the end become a heretic or an atheist. Rather, he looked upon his greatest triumph as keeping the faith that he regarded as the greatest gift of his life. He had remained faithful. He had stayed true to the Lord. St. Paul preserved the faith by sharing it. He wrote to the Corinthians, “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I myself received” (1 Cor 15:3). In today’s passage, he told St. Timothy that his goal was that through him “the proclamation might be completed and all the Gentiles might hear it.” Pope Francis commented a few years ago on this connection between keeping the faith and sharing it with others. He asked, “How did St. Paul preserve the faith?” and replied, “Not in a safe! He didn’t hide it underground, like the lazy servant who buried the talent. … He kept the faith because he didn’t limit himself to defending it, but proclaimed it, spread it, brought it to the farthest reaches of the world. … He preserved the faith because, just as he received it, he passed it on.” Pope Francis urged us likewise not to try to keep our faith like a private possession, but to share it with words and witness. This will happen, he said, if we recognize how great a treasure the faith and seek to share that treasure with those we know and love, indeed with everyone we meet. To keep the faith through having given his life to spread it was St. Paul’s greatest boast. He wants it to be ours, so that at the end of our life, we can look back with similar joy.
To fight the good fight, to finish the race and to keep the faith are three lenses with which we could look at all aspects of our Christian life. In today’s Gospel, however, Jesus speaks to us about prayer, and so it’s important for us to re-read the Gospel in the light of St. Paul’s words and re-read St. Paul’s last will and testament in light of Jesus’ instructions on prayer. We know that prayer is a battle. The Catechism tells us that sometimes prayer is like Jacob’s struggle all night against the angel of God (see Gen 32:25-32). We’re called to fight the good fight of prayer, to run to God in prayer and persevere in that marathon of a praying always without growing weary, as Jesus taught us all last Sunday in the Parable of the Persistent Widow. And if we’re going to keep the faith, we need to preserve a life of intense prayer, since, as Pope Benedict never ceased to say, prayer is faith-in-action. So today let’s pay particular attention to what the Lord teaches us in the Gospel about how to pray well so that we may be strengthened by him who stands with us to fight, to run, and to stay faithful.
In preparation for Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel, the Church gives us the first reading and the Psalm. Sirach reminds us that God doesn’t play favorites. He’s not “unduly partial to the weak” or the strong, “yet he hears the cry of the oppressed, … the orphan, …the widow, … the lowly, … the one who serves God willingly.” The Psalm reminds us, “When the just cry out, the Lord hears them,” for he is “close to the brokenhearted,” those “crushed in spirit,” those who “take refuge in him” and the “poor.” Yet while God hears the prayers of everyone and seeks to respond, in order to receive his gifts, each of us needs to know that we need those gifts and be open to them. Our prayer, in other words, must be humble, since pride can and will close us off to what God seeks to give. The surest way to lose the good fight, to quit the race and squander the faith is through pride. We see that in the parable Jesus gives us about the two men who went up to the temple to pray.
The first man was a Pharisee. He prayed, “Thank you, God, that I am not like the rest of humanity — greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.” The man was what most people would deem a highly religious man. He was going up to Jerusalem to the temple to pray, rather than just praying wherever he found convenient. He, like his fellow Pharisees, never sought to do the minimum in the practice of the faith but as much as they could. Whereas Jews were required to fast only once a year on the Day of Atonement, the Pharisees fasted twice a week, every Monday and Thursday. Whereas Jews needed to tithe only certain items, Pharisees tithed their whole income. While outwardly the Pharisee praying in the Temple was probably a role model, there was something drastically wrong in his conception of God, of faith, and of others. The first clue is that Jesus said about him, “He spoke this prayer to himself.” This doesn’t mean that he simply said his prayers quietly so that no one else could hear, but, in a sense, he was directing the prayer not to God to himself, as if he were God. He was basically informing God of his goodness rather than turning to God with praise, thanks, contrition, intercession and petition. He rejoiced that he was not like so many others, whom he deemed sinners and losers, exulting in what he saw was his virtue, while failing to recognize that he was proud, judgmental, vain, boastful and uncharitable. He didn’t ask God for mercy because he didn’t think he needed it. In fact, he didn’t ask God for anything, because he didn’t think he needed anything — or even God. Compared to so many around him, and to the other person he saw praying at that time in the temple, he considered himself a saint among sinners. He had come to the temple not to worship or beseech God, but essentially to give God a chance to pat him on the back and applaud him.
Jesus contrasts the Pharisee’s prayer with that of a tax collector. Tax collectors or publicans were hated by their fellow Jews not just because they were collaborating with the Romans who were subjugating the Jewish people, but because in carrying out their duty, they, out of greed, would routinely rip off their people. Tax collectors were assessed a certain amount that needed to be collected in a particular area; whatever they could get beyond that was theirs to keep — and many of the tax collectors were swindling the poor precisely in order to support a lavish lifestyle. They were corrupt, similar to an ancient mafia class that the authorities with whom they were conspiring would do nothing to stop. One would think that someone who had given his life over to this type of betrayal of his nation and his people wouldn’t pray at all. For him to pray, some might have argued, was hypocritical. But he realized that even if others would never forgive him, God might, and he knew he needed God’s forgiveness. With great humility, he stayed in the back of the temple, beat his breast and cried, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” In fact, the Greek St. Luke uses is even clearer. He prayed, “O God, be merciful to me the” He considered himself the worst and only sinner around. He didn’t try to exalt himself against anyone but to think of all people he was most desperate for God’s mercy. He was conscious that he didn’t deserve it, but since he knew that the Lord was kind and merciful, and that the Lord’s mercy endures forever, with great repentance he prayed for that gift.
Jesus gave a startling conclusion to the parable. He told his listeners that of the two, the good man who fasted, tithed and lived outwardly by the mosaic law, and the despicable one who conspired with pagan authorities and shook down his own fellow Jews, only one of them had their prayer heard and left the temple in a right relationship with God — and it was the publican! We’ve heard the parable so many times that we can miss the absolute shock that Jesus’ first listeners would have had in response to it. To understand their surprise, it would as if Jesus substituted a pope for the Pharisee and a drug lord for the tax collector and said that when the two left St. Peter’s Basilica only the drug lord was justified, on good terms with God. Such a comment was obviously not about the type of life the Pharisee and publican were leading until then, but about the type of prayer they made. The take-away is that no matter what type of life we have been leading until now, we are called to pray well, which means to pray humbly with a deep recognition of our need for God and for his mercy. This parable points to what Jesus taught elsewhere, “I have come not to call the self-righteous, but sinners!” We have come here on this Lord’s Day to pray. If we wish to leave on good terms with the Lord, we must humbly recognize how much we need Him, how we’re sinners in need of his mercy and seek to live by it. Only those who pray for mercy, who open themselves to it, will be able to receive it. Only the truly humble will be exalted because they’re the only one who will allow the Lord to lift them up.
Jesus proclaimed this parable, St. Luke tells us, to “those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.” Pride not only separates us from God and his assistance, but also from our neighbors. We begin to look down on others, including, for the Pharisee, not just on tax collectors but even on other Pharisees and, as we see throughout the Gospel, on Jesus himself. Such self-righteousness remains a great problem today. There are some in the Church who, when they look at themselves in the mirror, deem that, even though they may have their weaknesses and problems, at least they’re not like those who have “really sinned.” They might admit that, sure, like “everyone,” they, too, have some little “peccadilloes,” they need perhaps a pinch of God’s mercy, but nothing near what others need. They don’t think, as we pray at the beginning of every Mass, that they have “greatly sinned” by their own “most grievous fault.” Jesus gives this parable as a wake-up call, because such an attitude can incapacitate not only our prayer but our perseverance in the life of faith.
Such self-righteousness, however, isn’t just a problem for those who, like the Pharisees, actually try to live religiously. It can also afflict those who live like the publican, something that’s popular today in our culture and even in some places in the Church. Those who are clearly violating the Lord’s commandments left and right — by engaging in lifestyles totally incompatible with the Gospel, never coming to the temple to worship God, never praying at all, and advocating things diametrically opposed to what God has revealed — rather than repenting and coming to ask for God’s forgiveness, sometimes can glory in the shame of their sins and attack the Church or anyone seeking to help them to convert. They can pray like this, “I thank you, Lord, because I am not one of those hypocritical and judgmental modern Pharisees, haters who worry about fasting, who are obsessed about coming to Church and praying, who are guilt-tripped into tithing, who are neurotic about sin and think that everyone needs confession, but who in real life are much worse than I am!” Jesus is proclaiming today’s Parable to everyonewho is convinced of his or her own righteousness, whether the person has been religiously observant up until now or not. He is teaching us all about the importance of humility before him, in prayer and in life.
Paul’s used to kill Christians for a living, but he converted. Even after he became a great apostle, he always openly confessed that he was worst and least of all, because he had persecuted God’s Church (1 Cor 15:9). He discovered, however, that God was rich in mercy, so rich in fact that he called Paul himself to be an ambassador of that mercy, to help people throughout the known world to be reconciled to God. At the end of his life, St. Paul was able to pray with humble gratitude to God that, because of divine mercy, he had fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith.
As we enter through the Mass into Jesus’ last will and testament, as he is poured out like a libation for the forgiveness of our sins, as we participate in his beautiful good agony and the race he hastened to fulfill at the end of the Via Crucis, we ask for the grace to imitate Jesus and St. Paul in humbly fighting the good combat of the faith until the end, completing the course, treasuring, keeping and spreading the faith, and persevering in prayer to the One who stands by us still, on the inside, to strengthen us. That is the way by which, like St. Paul, at the end of our life, we will be able to look back with humble gratitude, joy, fulfillment and peace. This is the path by which we will receive the crown of righteousness that awaits us as we long for Christ’s appearance not just at the finish line of life in the heavenly Jerusalem but and even now here on the altar.

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1
Sir 35:12-14, 16-18
The LORD is a God of justice,
who knows no favorites.
Though not unduly partial toward the weak,
yet he hears the cry of the oppressed.
The Lord is not deaf to the wail of the orphan,
nor to the widow when she pours out her complaint.
The one who serves God willingly is heard;
his petition reaches the heavens.
The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds;
it does not rest till it reaches its goal,
nor will it withdraw till the Most High responds,
judges justly and affirms the right,
and the Lord will not delay.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 34:2-3, 17-18, 19, 23
R. (7a) The Lord hears the cry of the poor.
I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall be ever in my mouth.
Let my soul glory in the LORD;
the lowly will hear me and be glad.
R. The Lord hears the cry of the poor.
The LORD confronts the evildoers,
to destroy remembrance of them from the earth.
When the just cry out, the LORD hears them,
and from all their distress he rescues them.
R. The Lord hears the cry of the poor.
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted;
and those who are crushed in spirit he saves.
The LORD redeems the lives of his servants;
no one incurs guilt who takes refuge in him.
R. The Lord hears the cry of the poor.
Reading 2
2 Tm 4:6-8, 16-18
Beloved:
I am already being poured out like a libation,
and the time of my departure is at hand.
I have competed well; I have finished the race;
I have kept the faith.
From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me,
which the Lord, the just judge,
will award to me on that day, and not only to me,
but to all who have longed for his appearance.
At my first defense no one appeared on my behalf,
but everyone deserted me.
May it not be held against them!
But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength,
so that through me the proclamation might be completed
and all the Gentiles might hear it.
And I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.
The Lord will rescue me from every evil threat
and will bring me safe to his heavenly kingdom.
To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Alleluia
2 Cor 5:19
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ,
and entrusting to us the message of salvation.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Lk 18:9-14
Jesus addressed this parable
to those who were convinced of their own righteousness
and despised everyone else.
“Two people went up to the temple area to pray;
one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself,
‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity —
greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’
But the tax collector stood off at a distance
and would not even raise his eyes to heaven
but beat his breast and prayed,
‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’
I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former;
for whoever exalts himself will be humbled,
and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The post Fighting, Running and Praying for a Crown of Righteousness, 30th Sunday (C), October 26, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
29 min
October 24, 2025Reading and Responding to the Signs of the Times, 29th Friday (I), October 24, 2025
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Redemptor Hominis Chapel, Pope St. John Paul II Shrine, Washington, DC
Friday of the 29th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of St. Anthony Mary Claret
October 24, 2025
Rom 7:18-25, Ps 119, Lk 12:54-59

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.24.25_Homily_1.mp3

The following points were attempted in the homily:
Today Jesus speaks about our reading the signs of the times spiritually as well and meticulously as we do meteorologically, to know that all of Christian life is a journey to meet the “Magistrate” and to have us reconcile with God and with others, and do reparation and restitution, as we’re heading toward the court. He urges us to settle, to plea bargain, to plead guilty, before we get to the court and receive the verdict. As St. John Chrysostom would say, now is the time of mercy; later is the time of justice.
Learning how to read the signs of the times is important to see what we need to do with regard to the experience of concupiscence St. Paul describes in today’s first reading. He says, “I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.” Despite the fact that he “take[s] delight in the law of God in my inner self,” he recognized “in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind.” Jesus had warned people of this battle between spirit and flesh, telling him that “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Peter, we know, was willing to die for the Lord, but when push came to shove, he denied even knowing him. St. Paul was himself recognizing this battle between weak flesh and willing spirit. He struggled with it so much that he prayed at the end, “Miserable one that I am? Who will deliver me from this mortal body?” It is a consoling fact for Christians in every age that even great apostles struggled against concupiscence, too.
Before we answer St. Paul’s question about deliverance from concupiscence, we need highlight two things we find in the passage that are key to the Christian moral life. The first is that knowing is not enough. Plato once taught that all that we need to do the good is to know the good. But that’s not true because, like SS. Peter and Paul, we do not do the good we want, but we do the evil we do not want. As much as we say, “Lord, teach me your statutes” and he responds with that instruction, it’s not enough; we also need to win the battle to do what he teaches, having our spirit of obedience triumph over the weakness that makes obedience at times so hard. The second thing we learn is that resolutions alone are enough. We need to set them and strengthen our will, but at the same time, it’s not enough for us to set them; keeping them requires this same triumph over spirit over flesh.
So we come back to the question: “Who will deliver me from this mortal body?” There are three basic answers, one we get from today’s Gospel, and two we’ll get tomorrow, as we enter into one of the most important chapters in the Bible, Romans 8, which was St. Paul’s answer to his interrogative. The first response is prayer. When Jesus told Peter in the Gospel that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, he gave him the medicine for that diagnosis: to pray, that he would not undergo the test. We need to recognize our weakness and similarly turn to the Lord for help. The second is the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised that whenever we ask the Father for anything, he sends the Holy Spirit: “If you who are evil know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” The Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask him for anything. It’s the Holy Spirit, as we’ll be hearing tomorrow and early next week, who helps us to lift up our hearts to the Lord, to set our minds on the things of the Lord, to discern the signs of the times and respond accordingly. The third thing we’ll also hear tomorrow: it’s to cooperate with the Holy Spirit and “put to death,” “mortify,” whatever in us is earthly, liberating ourselves by God’s grace precisely from that domination of concupiscence and the flesh. It’s hard work. It’s the work of a lifetime. But it’s possible by the Holy Spirit’s help!
Today the Church celebrates someone who did know how to read the signs of the times and help so many others — his spiritual sons, the Spanish court, the Christians in Cuba and more — become good spiritual meteorologists. St. Anthony Mary Claret was born in Cataluña in 1807. I once happened upon his birthplace walking in the Spanish Pyrenees back in 1993. I prayed at the Church he was baptized in Sallent and pondered, a month before I entered seminary, the meaning of his life and my life and the call to sanctity given in baptism. I’ve always felt a close connection to him since. He was so passionate about spreading the faith, helping others to pray and receive the Lord’s superabundant mercy that he was named a missionary Archbishop of Santiago in Cuba, where he worked tireless to help the Cubans grow in faith, to prioritize making peace with God and others and living docile to the Holy Spirit. He founded the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate to help him in this work and help others live by the Holy Spirit like Mary. Many of those sons became great martyrs during the Spanish Civil War. In fact, so many bold Claretian seminarians gave their life for God and for their brothers and sisters during that time that they have been dubbed the “Martyrial Congregation.” In 1992, there was the beatification of 51 of his sons as martyrs from Barbastro; in 2005 the beatification of Fr. Andres Sola who was killed in Mexico; in 2013, there was the beatification of 23 Claretian brothers from Tarragona. And in 2017, another 109 martyrs from the Spanish Civil War were beatified. What a reward God has given to St. Anthony Mary to have so many saintly sons — 184 and counting. St. Anthony was recalled to Spain by the Queen to be her chaplain and he used his office, through the office of the queen, to do a tremendous amount of good in bringing reform, conversion of life and holiness to the court, to live by the Lord’s statutes, to have recourse to his mercy and to prioritize the most important things in life.
Today at this Mass the Lord wants to work the great miracle of strengthening our flesh to live according to the Holy Spirit. He sends the Holy Spirit to overshadow us just like he overshadows this altar: the total change of bread and wine into God is a sign of the power of transformation that the Holy Spirit can work likewise within us. As we read the signs of the times, we grasp that not only we’re heading toward the Judge but toward the Sun of Justice, rising with his healing rays, whom we now prepare to receive, bringing interior radiation that can shrink and eliminate the cancer of concupiscence.

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 ROM 7:18-25A
Brothers and sisters:
I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh.
The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not.
For I do not do the good I want,
but I do the evil I do not want.
Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it,
but sin that dwells in me.
So, then, I discover the principle
that when I want to do right, evil is at hand.
For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self,
but I see in my members another principle
at war with the law of my mind,
taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
Miserable one that I am!
Who will deliver me from this mortal body?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Responsorial Psalm PS 119:66, 68, 76, 77, 93, 94
R. (68b) Lord, teach me your statutes.
Teach me wisdom and knowledge,
for in your commands I trust.
R. Lord, teach me your statutes.
You are good and bountiful;
teach me your statutes.
R. Lord, teach me your statutes.
Let your kindness comfort me
according to your promise to your servants.
R. Lord, teach me your statutes.
Let your compassion come to me that I may live,
for your law is my delight.
R. Lord, teach me your statutes.
Never will I forget your precepts,
for through them you give me life.
R. Lord, teach me your statutes.
I am yours; save me,
for I have sought your precepts.
R. Lord, teach me your statutes.
Alleluia SEE MT 11:25
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth;
you have revealed to little ones the mysteries of the Kingdom.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel LK 12:54-59
Jesus said to the crowds,
“When you see a cloud rising in the west
you say immediately that it is going to rain–and so it does;
and when you notice that the wind is blowing from the south
you say that it is going to be hot–and so it is.
You hypocrites!
You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky;
why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
“Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?
If you are to go with your opponent before a magistrate,
make an effort to settle the matter on the way;
otherwise your opponent will turn you over to the judge,
and the judge hand you over to the constable,
and the constable throw you into prison.
I say to you, you will not be released
until you have paid the last penny.”
The post Reading and Responding to the Signs of the Times, 29th Friday (I), October 24, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
11 min
October 19, 2025Persevering Prayer to the Harvest Master, 29th Sunday (C), October 19, 2025
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Chapel of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, New York
Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
October 19, 2025
Ex 17:8-13, Ps 121, 2 Tim 3:14-4:2; Lk 18:1-8

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.19.25_Homily_1.mp3

The following text guided the homily:
Today is World Mission Sunday, the day on which the Church universal prays in unison to the Harvest Master for laborers for his harvest across the world, for the laborers already at work, for each of us to recognize that we’re laborers, for the fruitfulness of that labor and the salvation of those for w hom we’re laboring. It’s a day on which the Church seeks to put our faith-filled prayer into action, sacrificing to care for the work of missionaries in the now 1,130 missionary dioceses and territories across the globe where the local Church is too young, too poor, or too persecuted to be self-sustaining. Earlier this week, Pope Leo released an unprecedented video he recorded for World Mission Sunday so that it could be played in preparation for this Mass in which he emphasized the special importance of this day: “Dear Brothers and Sisters,” he said, “on World Mission Sunday every year, the whole Church prays, united, particularly for missionaries and the fruitfulness of their apostolic labors. When I served as a missionary priest and bishop in Peru, I saw first-hand how the faith, the prayer and the generosity shown on World Mission Sunday can transform entire communities. I urge every Catholic parish in the world to take part in World Mission Sunday. Your prayers and your support will help spread the Gospel, provide for pastoral and catechetical programs, help to build new churches, and care for the health and educational needs of our brothers and sisters in mission territories. This October 19, as we reflect together on our baptismal call to be ‘missionaries of hope among the peoples,’ let us commit ourselves anew to the sweet and joyful task of bringing Christ Jesus our Hope to the ends of the earth. Thank you for everything you will do to help me help missionaries throughout the world. God bless you all!” Two weeks ago, I was privileged to be with him in St. Peter’s Square for the Jubilee of the Missionary World, which he called a “wonderful opportunity to rekindle in ourselves the awareness of our missionary vocation, which arises from the desire to bring the joy and consolation of the Gospel to everyone. … The entire Church is missionary, and it is urgent … that we ‘go forth and preach the Gospel to all: to all places, on all occasions, without hesitation, reluctance or fear.’ … We are called to renew in ourselves the fire of our missionary vocation.” So today is a day to renew that fire, to experience what the prophet Jeremiah once confessed, “Within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot” (Jer 20:9). It’s to feel the explosive evangelical fervor of St. Paul who exclaimed, “Woe to me if I do not proclaim the Gospel!” (1 Cor9:16). It’s to remember that by our baptism and especially through our Confirmation, the Holy Spirit has come down upon us with a tongue of fire so that we might share our faith with burning love. This is why you became missionaries of that love in order to satiate Jesus’ infinite thirst to have others, especially the poorest of the poor, experience it. That’s why I became a priest. That’s why each of us was created, redeemed, and entrusted by Jesus with the completion of his saving mission.
The whole mission of the Church begins with prayer. It’s how it began with Jesus. As the future Pope Benedict XVI preached during the Great Jubilee of 2000, Jesus preached by day and prayed by night. Just as Jesus prayed all night before he called his first apostles, so “we ourselves cannot gather men. We must acquire them by God for God. All methods are empty without the foundation of prayer. The word of the announcement must always be drenched in an intense life of prayer.” That’s why St. Therese of the Child Jesus, whose relics are now traveling through the United States, is co-patron of the missions, because her life was indeed drenched in prayer. She never ceased to pray for the missions and to offer her sufferings for her spiritually adopted missionary priest brothers, Father Maurice Bellière in Malawi and Father Adolphe Rouland in China. When we look out at the fields of the world, we see that 5.5 of the 8.1 billion people alive are not Christian, they do not know Jesus as the Savior, Way, Truth, Resurrection and Life. They don’t know his love for them or how to follow him. One of the reasons why, St. Therese once said, is because of the complacency and laziness of Christians. We can make it more specific: it’s because we’re not praying enough for the missions, praying as if lives depend on the missions, because many of them absolutely do! We see what Jesus himself did: that indeed the fields are white and ripe for the harvest and, like Jesus, we are moved with pity for the crowds who are like sheep without their Good Shepherd. And so we pray to the Harvest Master with insistence today. And that prayer is not just meant to become a way of life, not just in terms of our praying each day, but also in converting that prayer into missionary sacrifice.
That’s what today’s readings provoke in us. St. Paul reminds St. Timothy and all of us about the importance of Sacred Scripture, saying that it is “useful … for training in righteousness,” for helping us “remain faithful to what [we] have learned and believed,” for making us “equipped for every good work,” and “persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient.” And today in the Gospel Jesus gives us a parable of the “necessity … to pray always without losing heart.” If a persevering widow was able eventually to get a corrupt judge to do the right thing when she was being victimized, Jesus says, how much more will God the Father, the Just Judge, “secure the rights of his chosen ones,” his beloved sons and daughters, “who call out to him day and night.” Jesus implies that God’s chosen ones call out to him not just when convenient, not just when there’s an emergency, but night and day. His chosen ones pray always without growing weary, seeking to unite themselves to him not just in formal times of prayer, but in their work, their study, their hobbies and even their sleep.
We see the importance of this prayer in today’s first reading, where we encounter a pivotal scene from the journey of the Israelites across the desert. It happened at Rephidim, where Moses at God’s instruction had struck a rock and allowed it to gush forth water for the people to drink. A brand new well in the middle of the desert would obviously attract others who might see in the well not just the means to quench their thirst but a source of power and profit. And so unsurprisingly the fearsome Amalekites showed up. God told the Israelites not to be afraid and instructed Moses to climb a nearby mountain with the staff of God in his hand and allow Joshua and the Israelites to battle against Amalek and his soldiers. We see what happened during the fight. Whenever Moses raised his hands raised in prayer, the Israelites dominated. Whenever his hands grew tired and fell, the Israelites were pummeled. Hence Moses’ two assistants, his brother Aaron and Hur, had him sit on a rock as they from behind kept his hands raised in prayer until sunset. With the hands raised as an external sign of Moses’ constant prayer, Joshua and the Israelites ended up mowing down the Amalekites. Through this unforgettable lesson, God was teaching his people about the importance of praying always in order to persevere and be victorious in the battles of life, the battles all of us face, individually and as the people of God. The hands of Christ’s Mystical Body the Church are meant perpetually to be raised to God in prayer for the needs of the Church throughout the world, including and especially the Church’s mission. That’s what is meant to happen in the Liturgy of the Hours in which the Church prays insistently, at least five times a day, to the Savior. That’s what happens in the more than a half-million Masses celebrated by the 407,000 priests of the world each day, as every half hour more than another 10,000 priests lead the Church in entering Jesus’ prayer from the Upper Room and Calvary as he, lifted up on the Cross, seeks to draw all people to himself. That’s what happens when we pray the Rosary, as we do with even greater fervor this month of October, as we join ourselves to Mary in her persistent prayer for all the children entrusted to her by Jesus on the Cross.
At the end of today’s Gospel parable, however, Jesus asks a haunting question: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” At first, those words seem like a non-sequitur. Jesus is talking about prayer through a story of a persistent widow and a corrupt judge but then he turns to asking about whether he will find people faithful. But there’s a crucial connection between the two. Prayer is faith-in-action. Jesus was asking whether when he comes — and by this he certainly means the end of our life, but since he can come at any point, he also means right now, tomorrow, any time — will he find us ultimately persevering in prayer? Will we be persevering in uniting all aspects of our life to God? If we are united to God in our prayer than we will be uniting ourselves to his will that all be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth and then with fire we will do whatever we can to share in that mission.
Today, October 19, is the Memorial of the North American Martyrs. Yesterday I was up at the Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs in Auriesville, New York, where the Jesuit Missionaries Saints Isaac Jogues, Rene Goupil and Jean de Lalande gave their lives in the 1640s as they sought to share the gift of our faith with the Mohawks. They were men of intense prayer. Rene Goupil was killed right after he and Father Isaac were praying the Rosary for the fruitfulness of their efforts among the clans of the village. When Isaac was a seminarian he used to spend long nights in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament asking God to bless the work of the missions and to help form him into a faithful and fruitful instrument for the sharing of the Gospel. Their persevering prayer helped cultivate their missionary perseverance despite all of the hardships and setbacks that the arduous work of sharing the faith among the indigenous in eastern Canada and upstate New York entailed. They are doubtless interceding for us all on World Mission Sunday that we might pray like them and labor like them for the Lord’s harvest.
Today in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Leo canonized seven new saints: Ignatius Maloyan, Peter To Rot, Vincenza Maria Poloni, Maria Carmen Rendiles, Maria Troncatti, José Hernández and Bartolo Longo. They were all figures of intense prayer. Pope Leo today in his homily focused on how they were personal embodiments of the faith Jesus at the end of today’s Gospel wants to find on earth. They were those whose faith made them strong in bearing witness to him in martyrdom and in mission. We count on their prayers on this World Mission Sunday from Jesus’ eternal right side.
The Mass is the great persevering prayer of the Church. It began during the Last Supper, continued on Good Friday and has continued all the way down to the present day. It’s one continuous sacrifice, as Eucharistic Prayer III has it, “from the rising of the sun to its setting.” It’s where we come to unite ourselves to Jesus and where he hopes to find us not only present but praying with living faith, ready to persevere in prayerful union with him through the valleys and mountains of life all the way until, God-willing, we join the North American Martyrs, the saints canonized today, Saints Francis Xavier and Therese Lisieux, patrons of the Missions, St. Teresa of Calcutta, and all God’s holy ones in the eternally persevering prayer of the heavenly Jerusalem! The Lord gives us Mass each day as a school of prayer leading to mission, sent out at the end of Mass with the blessing of God to announce the Gospel of the Lord. The Mass is how God prepares us always to be ready for his arrival at the end of our life by helping us prepare with prayerful eagerness to receive him here, seeking to unite all aspects of our life to him, and striving to bring as many others as we can to receive the fruits of Jesus’ own earthly labors for his Father the Harvest Master. It’s where we daily seek to answer his question, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1
Exodus 17:8-13
In those days, Amalek came and waged war against Israel.
Moses, therefore, said to Joshua,
“Pick out certain men,
and tomorrow go out and engage Amalek in battle.
I will be standing on top of the hill
with the staff of God in my hand.”
So Joshua did as Moses told him:
he engaged Amalek in battle
after Moses had climbed to the top of the hill with Aaron and Hur.
As long as Moses kept his hands raised up,
Israel had the better of the fight,
but when he let his hands rest,
Amalek had the better of the fight.
Moses’hands, however, grew tired;
so they put a rock in place for him to sit on.
Meanwhile Aaron and Hur supported his hands,
one on one side and one on the other,
so that his hands remained steady till sunset.
And Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people
with the edge of the sword.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 121:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
R.(cf. 2) Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
I lift up my eyes toward the mountains;
whence shall help come to me?
My help is from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.
R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
May he not suffer your foot to slip;
may he slumber not who guards you:
indeed he neither slumbers nor sleeps,
the guardian of Israel.
R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
The LORD is your guardian; the LORD is your shade;
he is beside you at your right hand.
The sun shall not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
The LORD will guard you from all evil;
he will guard your life.
The LORD will guard your coming and your going,
both now and forever.
R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Reading 2
2 Timothy 3:14-4:2
Beloved:
Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed,
because you know from whom you learned it,
and that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures,
which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation
through faith in Christ Jesus.
All Scripture is inspired by God
and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction,
and for training in righteousness,
so that one who belongs to God may be competent,
equipped for every good work.
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus,
who will judge the living and the dead,
and by his appearing and his kingly power:
proclaim the word;
be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient;
convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.
Alleluia
Hebrews 4:12
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The word of God is living and effective,
discerning reflections and thoughts of the heart.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Luke 18:1-8
Jesus told his disciples a parable
about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.
He said, “There was a judge in a certain town
who neither feared God nor respected any human being.
And a widow in that town used to come to him and say,
‘Render a just decision for me against my adversary.’
For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought,
‘While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being,
because this widow keeps bothering me
I shall deliver a just decision for her
lest she finally come and strike me.'”
The Lord said, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says.
Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones
who call out to him day and night?
Will he be slow to answer them?
I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.
But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
The post Persevering Prayer to the Harvest Master, 29th Sunday (C), October 19, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
22 min

About Catholic Preaching

From the publisher's feed

Father Roger J. Landry is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, who works for the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations in New York.