Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for Corpus Christi (B), Vigil

June 5, 2021

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.5.21_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us tomorrow on Corpus Christi, the Feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord.

* In some ways, it’s the most important conversation we have. Jesus takes bread and says to the apostles, and to us, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he takes wine in a chalice and says, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.” These words would have been shocking to the apostles on Holy Thursday in the Upper Room. The wonder should never wear off.

* Do we believe Jesus when he says, “This is my body?” and “This is the chalice of my blood?” If we do, these words should change us. They should blow up our earthly priorities.

* That’s the impact they had on me when I was a college freshman. I was away on campus, living on my own for the first time. I was fortunate to have grown up in a very faithful Catholic family, had always gone to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days, and was very involved in my hometown parish. From the time I was four, I had believe in what the Church calls the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and had never disbelieved the truth that after the words of consecration, there’s only Jesus under the appearances of bread of wine. But the consequences of the reality of the Eucharistic Jesus hadn’t struck me. But that September day in 1988, I asked myself, “If it is really Jesus, the eternal Son of God in the Holy Eucharist, is there anything more important that I could be doing on a Monday than receiving him in Holy Communion? Is there anything more important on a Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday, Friday or Saturday?” I recognized that the clear answer to that is that there was nothing more important in the whole world than receiving God inside. And from that day, September 24, 1988 until today — 11,943 days later — I have, by the grace of God, never gone one day without Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. St. Thomas Aquinas’ words from his famous Eucharist hymn, the Panis Angelicus, have always summed up my attitude of gratitude. We sing, “O res mirabilis! Manducat Dominum pauper et servus humilis.” “O what a mind-blowing reality: a poor and humble servant eats the Lord!” That’s what Jesus in the Eucharist makes possible. We creatures eat Creator. We sinners consume our Savior. We lovers become one flesh with the Beloved.

* There has to be consequences to the Eucharist. The Church teaches that Jesus in the Eucharist is meant to be the source and summit of the Christian life, the source, the starting point, from which everything flows, and the summit, the goal, to which everything goes. Jesus in the Eucharist is meant to be the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, of our whole life. We’re supposed to draw our life from Jesus in the Eucharist.

* Let’s get practical about five various ways:

* First, we should make Sunday Mass by far the biggest priority of our week. There’s the famous story of the martyrs of Abitene from 304. They were told by the Roman prefect that if they assembled on Sunday morning for Mass, they would be arrested and executed. They thanked him for the notice.… but then still all 49 Christians in the town came together on the Lord’s Day. When the flabbergasted prefect asked them why they didn’t heed his warning, one of them, Emeritus,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, New York, NY

Friday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

June 4, 2021

Tob 11:5-17, Ps 146, Mk 12:35-37

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.4.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* The Book of Tobit on which we’ve been meditating all week is about God’s healing. The quiet hero of the book is the Archangel Raphael, whose name means “The Healing of God.” We see in the book how God heals both Sarah, as we saw yesterday, and Tobit as we see today. He heals them after some suffering, to perfect them who were already good and virtuous. That’s an important point. They were both “just,” and were permitted by God to suffer in order to help them both advance in faith. God already had set up his medicine for them in the facts of the case: he had had Tobit earn and bury money in Media so that, after Tobit couldn’t go himself, Tobias could, could get bitten by the fish with the healing properties, could meet Sarah and become an instrument of the healing of each of them. We see the particularly “galling” way Tobit was healed in today’s Gospel, by his son’s smearing his cataracted eyes with gall from the fish who had bitten him, the same fish that had supplied the heart and liver that was burned to heal Sarah and Tobias from the wiles of the pagan god of lust in this allegory. There’s a clear sacramental allusion in this healing by something a little gross, much like Jesus would later heal someone of blindness by wiping saliva on his eyes. As soon as Tobit was cured, he rejoiced that he could see his son. He could in fact see much more clearly than he did before he was blinded four years earlier by bird droppings. His vision had been enriched by faith.

* We see Jesus seeking to do a similar healing in the Gospel. He was trying to help the scribes and those around him in the Temple see what God the Father had revealed to St. Peter at Caesarea Philippi, that the Messiah would also be God. That’s what was happening in Jesus’ question, that David who traditionally is understood to be the one who composed Psalm 110 that Jesus quotes, would call the Messiah — who would be his descendent according to the flesh — “Lord.” That’s precisely who Jesus was, not merely David’s descendent according to the flesh, but also his Lord and Creator. Jesus was opening the eyes of the minds of his contemporaries to a much deeper understanding of who the Messiah is, to help them to be able to embrace better what was coming within a few days in his Passion.

* As we receive Jesus, two days before the celebration of Corpus Christi, God wants to heal and open our eyes to see the Eucharist not routinely but with a new vision, especially in terms of how we are called to center our whole life on Jesus whom we receive, to become living walking monstrances carrying God within out to the streets here of Manhattan. St. Ignatius of Antioch called Jesus in the Eucharist “the medicine of immortality.” This is the greatest source of God’s healing, which he places not on our eyes but within us to heal not just our vision but so much more, making it possible for us to become the “gall” that can go out, attached to Him and all his healing power, to help others to see anew as well.

 

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

Reading 1 TB 11:5-17

Anna sat watching the road by which her son was to come.

When she saw him coming, she exclaimed to his father,

“Tobit, your son is coming, and the man who traveled with him!”

Raphael said to Tobiah before he reached his father:

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, New York, NY

Thursday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions

June 3, 2021

1 Tob 6:10-11.7:1.9-17.8:4-9, Ps 128, Mk 12:28-34

 

To listen to a recording of this morning’s homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.3.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Over the last three days all of the major groups of Jewish society had come to Jesus to test him, and even trap him, with tough questions. On Tuesday, the strict Pharisees and lax Herodians conspired to try to trip Jesus up on the question of whether it was lawful to pay the census tax. Yesterday, the elitist Sadducees came to get him on the question of the Resurrection of the dead. Today the last of the major groups, the Scribes, came up to him to ask him which was the greatest of all the commandments. After Jesus’ answer today, St. Mark tells us, “No one dared to ask him any more questions.”

* We’ve heard the answer to today’s question so many times that its difficulty is not always obvious. There were 613 commandments in the Old Covenant. To ask which of them was the greatest was required not only great familiarity with all of Sacred Scripture — something that the scribes had and very few others had — but also great synthesis to discover what in the Old Covenant had the greatest weight of all. As we see throughout the Gospels, the Scribes, Pharisees and many others didn’t have a great sense of the hierarchy of truths, about prioritizing what was most important of all. They often focused far more on how they’d wash their hands, pots and jugs than how to love their neighbor, straining out gnats, to use Jesus’ image that we’ll be hearing about in the next few weeks beginning Monday with the Sermon on the Mount, than avoiding swallowing camels. Jesus, however, answered the question about the most important thing we need to do and then offered a second, which is allied to it, in such a way that the scribe who had asked the question was truly impressed. For us, today, we need to ponder Jesus’ response and what that means in our life.

* The first and the greatest commandment, Jesus said, is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.” It was to love the Lord not only with part of ourselves, but all of ourselves. So often we can think everything is fine if, basically, we love the Lord with “most” of our heart, with “some of our mind,” with a “little of our strength,” and with the “majority of our soul.” But Jesus wants everything. And deserves everything. But how can Jesus command us to love? Can anyone be compelled to love or forced to love from the outside? Isn’t that inconsistent with what love is? It would be impossible to command to love if love were just a feeling, because we can’t be commanded to feel something. But love is fundamentally a choice, it’s an act of willing, it’s something in which our freedom is engaged. Jesus can command us to love God with all we are because God gives us himself to help us precisely to love to that degree. He commands and at the same time makes fulfilling the command possible. Pope Benedict took up this question in his beautiful encyclical Deus Caritas Est, saying, “love can be ‘commanded’ because it has first been given.”

* And to keep that commandment to love God with all we are, we need to let that love overflow into two other forms of love, the authentic love of ourselves and the love of our neighbor as we authentically love ourselves. If we love God and God loves us, then we must love ourselves as God loves us, helped of course by God’s own love. Jesus insists in his Last Supper discourse that the F...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, New York, NY

Wednesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of SS. Marcellinus and Peter

June 2, 2021

Tob 3:1-11.16-17, Ps 25, Mk 12: 18-27

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.2.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted:

* Today we continue to read the last part of the Gospel of St. Mark before we get to the Passion. Yesterday we had the arch-inimically strict Pharisees and lax Herodians teeming up to try to trap Jesus in his speech about whether it’s lawful to pay taxes to Caesar. Today we have the third major group of the time, the well-heeled Sadducees, trying to embarrass Jesus by a question intended both to mock him and non-Pentateuchal sources of Jewish revelation like the Book of Tobit. But once again Jesus transcended the trap. And once again he taught us crucially important principles about the spiritual life.

* The question that came from the Sadducees probably had its grounding in the first reading where Sarah in the Book of Tobit had seven consecutive husbands. The Sadducees, the party from which many of the chief priests would come, didn’t believe in the resurrection and claimed that there was no witness to resurrection in the only books of the Bible they accepted, the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Numbers). They gave the example of a woman married consecutively to seven brothers according to the levirate law (Deut 25:5-10) that stated that if a brother died before his wife had conceived, his brother ought to marry her and if they had any children, the children would be legally those of the deceased brother and his heir. Because the woman had been “one-flesh” with all seven brothers, the Sadducees asked with whom she would be united in one flesh in the next life.

* Jesus in his reply said to them that they were “greatly misled” because they knew neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. They didn’t know the Scriptures even they accepted. God’s words to Moses in the Book of Exodus — “I am” not I was “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob,” long after the three patriarchs had died — indicated that they were indeed alive, in the present tense, with God. With regard to the power of God, Jesus was implying that the Sadducees didn’t believe God had the power to raise the dead or to do anything different in the next world than he did in this world. (Jesus also says that in heaven, there is no marriage or giving in marriage. There will still be love in heaven, but no more marriages would be entered into since marriage has the purpose of sanctification and the procreation and education of offspring, and neither purpose makes sense in eternity when people are already sanctified and where there will be no more pregnancies and children. The one marriage in the afterlife is the fulfillment of Christ’s marriage to his Bride the Church.)

* They were greatly “misled.” We need to be greatly “led” to grasp the Scriptures and the power of God. Both are the work of the Holy Spirit, whom we continue to ponder in these weeks after the celebration of Pentecost. The same Holy Spirit who inspired the secondary authors of Sacred Scripture inspires us to read it. He reminds us of everything Jesus said, helps us to know and understand it. And the Holy Spirit is the “dynamis,” the power, of God, or as we say in the Creed, “the Lord and giver of life.” In a particular way the Holy Spirit helps us by bringing us to find the synthesis of the Scriptures and God’s power in Christ crucified. St. Paul described Christ crucified as the “power and the wisdom of God.” To get to know God’s power,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Shrine of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, Auriesville, NY

Trinity Sunday, Year B

May 30, 2021

Deut 4:32-34.39-40, Ps 33, Rom 8:14-17, Mt 28:16-20

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.30.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* Today we celebrate the feast of who God is. Every Sunday is, in a very real sense, dedicated to God and therefore every Sunday really is Trinity Sunday. But since the 1300s, the Church has celebrated on the Sunday immediately following Pentecost a feast dedicated to the Holy Trinity, to help all of us focus more explicitly on who God is in his profound mysterious depths, and therefore on who we’re called to be made in His image and likeness.

* “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity,” we read in a very important paragraph in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “is the central mystery of Christian faith and life” (CCC 234).  It’s the central mystery, note, not just with regard to what we believebut how we live. The Catechism goes on to say why: “It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the ‘hierarchy of the truths of faith.’” The mystery of the Trinity enlightens the mystery of Creation, the mystery of Redemption, the Mystery of Sanctification. It illumines every page of Sacred Scripture. It helps us to understand the commandments. It sheds light on the four last things. It reveals what is at the root of all of the sacraments and prayer.

* The Catechism paragraph concludes, “The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men ‘and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin.” Underneath the history of the world, underneath our own personal history from the moment of our conception in our mother’s womb until now and beyond, has developed within this mystery of the Blessed Trinity. Therefore, it’s crucial for us as human beings, not to mention believers, to pour ourselves into the mystery of the Trinity. The teaching on the Trinity is not meant be some footnote on a Christian life, but a central part. We know that it was because of faith in the Trinity that Saints Isaac Jogues, Rene Goupil, Jean de Lalande left the comforts of France to come here amid sufferings and trials to help the peoples of the New World to learn the truth about God and about ourselves. They took literally the Christian call to “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” It was because of faith in the Trinity that St. Kateri Tekakwitha eventually left her family behind so that she might live without opposition and danger in the love of God. Their lives give witness to the fact that the Christian life is meant to be a Trinitarian life. Your life, my life, is meant to be a Trinitarian life.

* And so the question we must ponder today is: How do we live a Trinitarian life?

* We certainly are helped to live this reality liturgically, although sometimes we can fail to recognize it. This whole Mass, for example, is lived in communion with the Trinity. We began this Mass in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We will end it by receiving the blessing of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the commission to be sent forth, like the North American Martyrs, to proclaim the Gospel, baptize and teach. Everything we do and say during the Mass is nothing other than a dialogue between us and the Father, through the person of Jesus Christ,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Saint Agnes Church, Manhattan

Sunday of the Most Holy Trinity, Extraordinary Form

May 30, 2021

Rom 11:33-36, Matt 28:18-20

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.30.21_EF_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* Today we celebrate the feast of who God is. Every Sunday is, in a very real sense, dedicated to God and therefore every Sunday really is Trinity Sunday. But since the 1300s, the Church has celebrated on the Sunday immediately following Pentecost a feast dedicated to the Holy Trinity, to help all of us focus more explicitly on who God is in his profound mysterious depths, and therefore on who we’re called to be made in His image and likeness.

* “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity,” we read in a very important paragraph in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “is the central mystery of Christian faith and life” (CCC 234).  It’s the central mystery, note, not just with regard to what we believebut how we live. The Catechism goes on to say why: “It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the ‘hierarchy of the truths of faith.’” The mystery of the Trinity enlightens the mystery of Creation, the mystery of Redemption, the Mystery of Sanctification. It illumines every page of Sacred Scripture. It helps us to understand the commandments. It sheds light on the four last things. It reveals what is at the root of all of the sacraments and prayer.

* The Catechism paragraph concludes, “The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men ‘and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin.” Underneath the history of the world, underneath our own personal history from the moment of our conception in our mother’s womb until now and beyond, has developed within this mystery of the Blessed Trinity. Therefore, it’s crucial for us as human beings, not to mention believers, to pour ourselves into the mystery of the Trinity. The teaching on the Trinity is not meant be some footnote on a Christian life, but a central part. With wonder, we’re called to say as St. Paul did in today’s epistle, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” and we want to plumb that depth! The Christian life is meant to be a Trinitarian life. Your life, my life, is meant to be a Trinitarian life.

* And so the question we must ponder today is: How do we live a Trinitarian life?

* We certainly are helped to live this reality liturgically, although sometimes we can fail to recognize it. This whole Mass, for example, is lived in communion with the Trinity. We began this Mass in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. At the end of it we will receive the blessing of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the commission, “Ite, missa est,”  an abbreviation of Christ’s valedictory command in today’s Gospel, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe everything” that Jesus has commanded us. Everything we do and say during the Mass is nothing other than a dialogue between us and the Father, through the person of Jesus Christ, in the light and with the help of the Holy Spirit. In the middle of Mass, we loudly proclaim that we have grounded our lives in the mystery of the Trinity, as we proclaim together with the Church on earth, in heaven and in Purgatory as we say: “I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth… I believe in one...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for Holy Trinity Sunday (B), Vigil

May 29, 2021

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.29.21_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us tomorrow on Trinity Sunday.

* Every Sunday is, in a very real sense, dedicated to God and therefore every Sunday really is Trinity Sunday. But since the 1300s, the Church has celebrated on the Sunday immediately following Pentecost a feast dedicated to the Holy Trinity, to help all of us focus more explicitly on who God is in his profound mysterious depths, and therefore who we’re called to be made in His image and likeness.

* “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity,” we read in an incredibly important paragraph in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “is the central mystery of Christian faith and life.” It’s the central mystery, note, not just with regard to what we believe but how we live. The Catechism goes on to say why: “It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the ‘hierarchy of the truths of faith.’” The mystery of the Trinity enlightens the mystery of Creation, the mystery of Redemption, and the Mystery of Sanctification. It illumines every page of Sacred Scripture. It helps us to understand the commandments. It sheds light on the four last things. It reveals what is at the root of all of the sacraments and prayer.

* The Catechism paragraph concludes, “The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men ‘and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin” (CCC 234). Underneath the history of the world, underneath our own personal history from the moment of our conception in our mother’s womb, until now and beyond, has developed within this mystery of the Blessed Trinity. Therefore, it’s crucial for us as human beings, not to mention believers, to pour ourselves into the mystery of the Trinity. This means not just pouring our minds, but our heart, soul, strength and entire existence, into this reality. The Christian life is meant to be a Trinitarian life. Your life, my life, is meant to be a Trinitarian life.

* How do we live a Trinitarian life?

* We certainly are helped to live this reality liturgically. In the Gospel for this Sunday, Jesus tells us, in his valedictory words immediately before his Ascension, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” To be baptized is to be submerged, to enter into, to be inundated in the “name” not “names” of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is to enter into his life. The Trinitarian indwelling begins right then.

* In the Mass we are helped to enter more fully into communion with our Trinitarian God. We begin Mass in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We end it by receiving the blessing of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Everything we do and say during this Mass is nothing other than a dialogue between us and the Father, through the person of Jesus Christ, in the light and with the help of the Holy Spirit. The priest greets us all with St. Paul’s words, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Saturday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of Pope Saint Paul VI

May 29, 2021

Sir 51:12-20, Ps 19, Mk 27-33

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.29.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today we finish our study of the Book of Sirach, which takes place during the Seventh and Eighth Weeks of Ordinary Time every second year. But insofar as every year we lose one-and-a-half weeks of Ordinary Time readings due to the dates of when the Lenten and Easter seasons take place, we often lose these readings from Sirach. The last time we had today’s passage, for example, was a decade ago. So it’s important that we get the larger goal of what God is trying to communicate to us through Ben Sira. Yesterday he mentioned that the greatest of all his works is making “godly men” and women. Today we see one of the foremost attributes of someone who is holy: they pursue the truth, they hunger to see things as they really are, as God sees them, and to live according to that truth. Ben Sira describes, “When I was young and innocent, I sought wisdom openly in my prayer … and I will seek her until the end. … My heart delighted in her. My feet keep to the level path because from earliest youth I was familiar with her.” He lived the path of wisdom. “I became resolutely devoted to her — the good I persistently strove for. My soul was tormented in seeking her.” That’s a sign of the great passion he had. “My hand opened her gate and I came to know her secrets. I directed my soul to her and in cleanness I attained her.” His whole being sought to live by God’s wisdom, and because he was pure of heart, God allowed him to attain her. The reading allows us to ask ourselves how ardently we seek the truth of the Lord, how tormented we are in seeking her, whether from your youth we persistently strive for her. For Ben Sira, this meant seeking the Lord through the study of Sacred Scripture and through prayer. In the Psalm today, we see the gift of Sacred Scripture, that we’re pursuing not a straightjacket but a liberation. The Law of the Lord is perfect, soul-refreshing, trustworthy, wisdom-imparting, right, full of joy, clear, illuminating, pure, enduring, true, just, precious and sweet. That’s what one who resolutely pursues God and the word, will and wisdom of God experiences!

* In today’s Gospel, we meet scholars of the law — the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders — who likely had begun to seek wisdom in their younger days with great passion like Ben Sira, but who had become corrupted over time. They no longer sought it in cleanness of heart. They no longer kept their feet to the level path. They no longer even delighted in it, because when Jesus came to proclaim and enflesh it, they totally opposed him. And they couldn’t even admit to the truth when they were asked about it directly: they sought to spin reality toward their advantage in a refusal to walk in the light. We see all of this in today’s Gospel. The the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders were seeking to entrap Jesus the day after he had driven out the money changers from the temple. They asked him about the authority with which he was doing such things, anticipating that if he said his own authority, they could have him arrested for vandalism or worse, and if he said God’s authority they could entrap him for seeming to oppose God’s will with regard to the temple. He transcended the question by first getting them to confront the truth as proclaimed by St. John the Baptist. When Jesus asked,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Friday of the Eighth week in Ordinary Time (I)

May 28, 2021

Sir 44:1 9-13, Ps 149:1-6 9, Mk 11:11-26

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.28.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* In the first reading from the Book of Sirach, with words that we’re accustomed to hear on the Memorial of SS. Joachim and Anne, Ben Sira praises the holy men and women who had gone before him, saying that the faithful, the virtuous, the keepers of the Covenant, are the ones whose memory endures. He speaks about the fruit of their fidelity in the fruit they bear, namely their children and descendants, to whom they bequeathed a treasure of faith. Of those who did not remain faithful to the Covenant, he says, “there is no memory.” This is a truth we see in the history of the Church as well. For the most part, those whom the world honors during their lifetime because of political power, or good looks, or wealth or even intelligence, are most often forgotten. But the saints, those who have really been faithful to God, live on, not just in God, as we know they do, but often are the ones remembered here on earth. Few people know who were the celebrities 100, 500, 1500 years ago. But we can name many of the saints, those who have borne fruit, those who have passed on a legacy of faith.

* The chief characteristic of a “godly man or woman,” of someone through whom God’s holiness radiates, is prayer. Prayer, as we’ve spoken about, is not so much an exchange of ideas or words but of persons, and a person of prayer abides in God and God in him. Today’s Gospel is an illustration of prayer and how prayer is meant to bear fruit. Many times people are confused by this Gospel scene. Jesus curses the fig tree for not producing fruit even though it was the time of year when it shouldn’t have produced any fruit at all. Is the takeaway that Jesus demands us to do the impossible, to bear fruit even when physically impossible, at the risk of being cursed by him forever? No, the lesson is much simpler. We can see that within the context. As soon as Peter points out to Jesus that the fig tree he cursed the previous day had withered, Jesus replied immediately with a lesson not about fruitfulness or condemnation but about praying with faith in the God who hears: “Have faith in God,” Jesus said. “Amen, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it shall be done for him.” What Jesus was indicating was that on the previous day, when he said to the fruitless tree out of season, “May no one ever eat of your fruit again!,” God the Father was hearing him. The withered fig tree was above all a lesson about the power of prayer, a prayer that can literally move mountains or desiccate trees because God is listening attentively to his sons and daughters like he was listening to his Son and dried up the fig tree in order to give his Son a chance to speak about the power of prayer.

* We can learn four things about prayer from this scene.

* The first is about faith, faith that God can do anything, as we’ve already seen.

* The second is about the conviction with which we pray, that we pray without doubting but believing in our heart. “Therefore I tell you,” Jesus says, “all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours.” Many times we pray without this conviction. We ask, but we really don’t trust that our prayer will be heard, often because we don’t really trust that God is listening with love read...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Thursday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of St. Augustine of Canterbury

May 27, 2021

Sir 42:15-25, Ps 33, Mk 10:46-52

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.27.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following thoughts were attempted in the homily: 

* In the Book of Sirach today, Ben Sira, helped by the Holy Spirit, tries to “recall God’s works” and does so even though “even God’s holy ones must fail in recounting the wonders of the Lord.” He describes with wonder God’s creation at his word, his capacity to plumb depth and heart, his knowledge, wisdom, beauty. We continue that praise in the Psalm, trying to sing him a new song since “by the word of the Lord the heavens were made” and all God’s works are trustworthy. That spirit of praise is meant to influence our entire life, but with regard to the redemption we must go, as our prayer on Christmas day bids us, from “mirabiliter” to “mirabilius“: “O God who wondrously created man and even more wondrously redeemed him.” We see the whole pattern of the even more wondrous redemption in the extraordinary Gospel scene with Bartimaeus, the blind man.

* Jericho is the lowest place on earth, more below sea level than any other location. Jesus was passing through the depths of the human world in order to ascend the 15 mile road up hill that leads to Jerusalem, where he would suffer and die to lift us up.  St. Mark tells us, “Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus, sat by the road side begging.” Bartimaeus was not born blind, but had become blind over the course of time. We see that in the verb he uses later — anablepo — asking Jesus in the Greek to “see again.” But he hadn’t just lost his sight. To some degree, he had lost the dignity he would have had. He was sitting by the road side begging. He could not rely on himself anymore. He needed help. He had hit rock bottom. He was in the depth of the valley of darkness in the lowest place on earth. But it was precisely in that spiritual poverty that Jesus would come to meet him, as many times he has likewise come to us. When he heard that Jesus was passing by, he didn’t cry out for alms, which would have been small. He didn’t cry out at that point for a miracle. He cried out simply for mercy. “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!” He had doubtless heard of Jesus’ reputation for working miracles to the north in Galilee and was responding in faith. The fact that he called him “Son of David” was a sign he believed Jesus was the Messiah. The word St. Luke uses for crying out means basically an animal cry, something coming deep from his woundedness. And his prayer would be answered. Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” Like rabbis were accustomed to do on all their pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the major feasts, Jesus was teaching the crowds along the journey. But when he heard Bartimaeus’ pleas, he stopped in his tracks and ordered that Bartimaeus be brought to him. For Jesus caring for this man was more important than what he was teaching at that moment, because he was about to show the Gospel rather than just verbally describe it. He was also going to show how he responds to persistent prayer. They said to Bartimaeus, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.” It would have been very easy for Jesus to come to meet Bartimaeus exactly where he was begging. But Jesus loved him too much and understands the human heart too well to do that. Instead he drew near, he got close, but then he had Bartimaeus get up to come to him, to exercise Bartimaeus’ freedom, to stoke his desire,