Fr. Roger J. Landry

Wednesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of St. Philip Neri

May 26, 2021

Sir 36:1.4-5.10-17, Ps 79, Mk 10:32-45

 

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The following text guided today’s homily:

* Today in the first reading, Ben Sira, inspired by the Holy Spirit, prays for God to “reward those who have hoped in you,” by letting “your prophets be proved true.” That would be seen, we can see in his prayer, by “put[ting] all nations in dread of you,” “gather[ing] all the tribes of Jacob that they may inherit the land as of old.” He begs God to “lead us in the way of justice,” understanding justice as restoring Israel’s proper place, so that “it will be known to the very ends of the earth that you are the eternal God.” It was a prayer for the Messiah and for what a typical faithful Jew would think the Messiah would do. This prayer of Book of Sirach would be heard by God, but in a way far different than he was anticipating. God would show the light of his mercies, he would gather all the tribes of Judah, he would show mercy to Israel, Jerusalem, Zion in a way different from their expectations. He would reward those who have hoped in him and let his prophets be proven true not just about the coming of the Messiah but about how that Messiah would suffer. He would lead them in the way of true justice and send his first Jewish believers out with the Gospel to the very ends of the earth to help them realize that the eternal God is with them always until the end of time.

* That contrast between the Jews’ human, political hopes for the Messiah, and God’s plans for a Messiah-Redeemer, are on full display in the Gospel, which in some aspects is one of the most disappointing and humanly revolting scenes in Scripture. Jesus describes for the third time what is going to happen to him in Jerusalem. He had been walking alone, ahead of the others, and the others were amazed and afraid of this fact, almost certainly because Jesus was in a pensive mood that they hadn’t seen very often. He took the Twelve aside and said to them what was obviously on his mind as he was walking on the path up to Jerusalem: “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and hand him over to the Gentiles who will mock him, spit upon him, scourge him, and put him to death but after three days he will rise.” And what was the response of the disciples? Was it to commiserate with him? Was it to console him? Quite far from it. Instead, James and John came to Jesus and said, “We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you!.” After Jesus asked, “What do you wish me to do for you?,” they replied, “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.” Jesus had told them that he was going to die and they were asking for favors, in the expectation of a political messianic kingdom. Before we get into the meat of the scene and what it means for us, let’s just pause to consider the ugliness of what was happening. Imagine, for example, that your father or your brother or your best friend or a parishioner or even a stranger on a plane came to you and told you that the doctor had just given him two weeks to live and, instead of consoling him, instead of even caring about him, you immediately shifted your attention and asked him to help you get a promotion at work or to give you his house or pepper him about getting a larger share of his will. That’s what was happening in this scene. That’s what Jesus’ friends were doing to him in today’s Gospel.

Fr. Roger J. LandryVisitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, ManhattanTuesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time, Year IMay 25, 2021Sir 35:1-12, Ps 50, Mk 10:28-31

 

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

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The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today as we enter into Ordinary Time and try to put into practice Life according to the Spirit, the Holy Spirit through the Book of Sirach teaches us a lot about how to live well and make sacrifices most pleasing to God. Sirach lists this wisdom about fitting oblations that we can worship God aright. For the Jews, when they thought about sacrifices to God, they generally thought of the temple rites and a holocaust of animals, the offering of showbread, cereals, and tithes. Today God through Sirach helps them to see that the sacrifice he most wants is a life of holiness, virtue, goodness, and charity. He specifies keeping the law, observing the commandments, carrying out works of charity, giving alms, refraining from evil, and avoiding injustice. He says that God seeks the pleasing offering of a just person, given with a generous spirit, cheerful countenance and a joyful heart. This is the way by which we will appear before the Lord, not empty handed, but with a pleasing gift. This is the way our whole being will rise as a sweet odor of incense before Him. This is the way we give back to the Lord as he has generously given to us.

* The spirituality of self-offering Sirach describes is not, therefore, one of de facto offering bribes or extorting from God. It’s not giving to God in order to obtain something back. The reality is that God has given us everything so that, as we empty ourselves and cheerfully give everything back to him, we open ourselves to receive from him an even greater gift. The Lord, Sirach says, is one “who repays” and who “always gives back seven-f0ld.” And that seven-fold rumuneration continues to multiply as we continue to give ourselves back to him with all of his gifts.

* This spirituality of sacrifice is the proper introduction to understand better today’s Gospel, which is the continuation of the scene with the Rich Young Man and Jesus’ words about how hard it is to be saved. The apostles were astonished by Jesus’ description of the human impossibility of salvation — that it would be easier for a camel to fit through a needle’s eye — and replied with the words, “We have given up everything and followed you.” In Matthew’s account, Peter adds, “What will there be for us?” The apostles had in fact done what the Rich Young Man wouldn’t do: they left their boats, their homes, their families, in order to give themselves and all they had to the poor and follow Jesus. They were beginning to wonder whether it was just going to be a waste if salvation were truly impossible. Jesus consoled Peter and the apostles by promising something far greater than the seven-fold of Sirach: “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come.” That’s an astonishing promise on various levels. The first is the munificent return, something they will experience in the new family of the Church when the Church lives out her life as the early Church did. The second is the promise of persecution. Because of our union with Christ — the 100 fold gift and Giver! — we, too, will experience what he experienced, but this is a blessing that helps us to empty ourselves of everything, including sometimes our own life,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Memorial of Mary, Mother of the Church

May 24, 2021

Gen 3:9-15.20, Ps 87, Jn 19:25-34

 

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

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The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today for the fourth time, the Church celebrates with joy the Memorial of Mary, Mother of the Church, decreed in 2018 by Pope Francis to occur on the Monday after Pentecost. May 24, coincidentally is also the Feast of Our Land, Help of Christians, decreed in 1815, and the Feast of Our Lady of Sheshan, the most famous Chinese Marian sanctuary, located in western Shanghai, and the day on which Catholics throughout the world pray for the Christians and the Church in China. So we pray to Our Lady as our Mother, today, who is always ready to help, especially when we are in greatest need.

* Today’s feast is not just about the importance of Mary’s spiritual maternity but also concerns the way we’re all called not just to receive the fruits of her love but to love her as Jesus did. Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, wrote in his Decree establishing this memorial that in the scene we have in today’s Gospel of Mary with John on Calvary, “The Mother standing beneath the cross accepted her Son’s testament of love and welcomed all people in the person of the beloved disciple as sons and daughters to be reborn unto life eternal. She thus became the tender Mother of the Church which Christ begot on the cross handing on the Spirit. Christ, in turn, in the beloved disciple, chose all disciples as ministers of his love towards his Mother, entrusting her to them so that they might welcome her with filial affection.” So this feast is not just about the privilege we have to receive Mary’s love but about the call we have, with Christ, to love his mother with filial affection!

* It’s important for us to understand a little bit of the history of this feast because it shows us how the Holy Spirit has been guiding the Church throughout the centuries to recognize Mary’s maternity of the Church and respond with Christ-like Marian love.  St. Augustine and St. Leo the Great all spoke about the maternity of Mary in the Church. St. Augustine said that she is “acknowledged and honored as being truly the Mother of God and of the redeemer” but she must also be considered “the mother of the Members of Christ … since she has by her charity joined in bringing about the birth of believers in the Church, who are members of its head.” St. Leo said that the birth of Christ the head is also the birth of the Church his Body. Pope Benedict XIV in 1748 and Pope Leo XIII affirmed Mary as Mother of the Church but it was Pope St. Paul VI who formalized the title. It was a result of the focus that the Second Vatican Council gave to Mary, taking a schema for a separate document on Mary and incorporating its insights and the Council’s teaching on Mary into the eighth and “summit” chapter of Lumen Gentium, its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. On November 21, 1964, as the third session of the Council was closing, St. Paul VI reflected joyfully on the significance of putting Mary into the dogmatic Constitution and said it was time to “fulfill the vow we highlighted at the end of the last Session and that many Council Fathers have made their own, insistently asking that during this Council the maternal mission that the Blessed Virgin Mary fulfills in the Christian people be explicitly declared. For this reason, it seems necessary that in this public setting we officially announced a title with which the Blessed Virgin is honored,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Espirito Santo Church, Fall River, MA

Nuptial Mass of Cody Knight and Kimberly Abgrab

May 22, 2021

Sir 26:1-4.13-16, Ps 34, Phil 4:4-9, Mt 5:1-12

 

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

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The following text guided the homily: 

“Rejoice in the Lord always,” St. Paul tells us in his Letter to the Philippians, which Cody and Kimberly chose for today’s wedding Mass. “I shall say it again: rejoice!” We are filled with joy and abundant gratitude to God for getting you to this day — despite a pandemic, despite some serious health challenges — and for making it possible for us to be here with you as he prepares to join you in one flesh for the rest of your lives. Jesus came into the world so that his joy might be in us and our joy might be complete. And since God-with-us is with us until the end of time, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, in poverty and prosperity, it is indeed possible, in fact our duty and salvation, to rejoice in him at all times and always and everywhere give him thanks and praise.

Joy is a fruit of the action of the Holy Spirit in us (Gal 5:22). To rejoice always, we must cooperate with the work of the Holy Spirit. And it is impossible to miss the imprint of the Holy Spirit, Kimberly and Cody, on your marriage day. You are getting married in this beautiful Church dedicated to the Holy Spirit. You are being wed on the Vigil of Pentecost, celebrating that day on which the Holy Spirit came down upon Mary and the Apostles in the Upper Room, as depicted in the beautiful stained glass window in the choir loft. This sanctuary is full of the bandeiras (flags) and coronas (crowns) reflective of Portuguese piety toward the Divino Espirito Santo, the third Person of the Blessed Trinity. And the priest celebrating your wedding was here on April 12, 2010, as Kimberly’s Confirmation sponsor, Kimberly, as she was sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, as the Holy Spirit came down upon her as her helper and guide and as she were filled with his gifts of wisdom, understanding, knowledge, reverence, prudence, courage and fear of the Lord. This is the same Holy Spirit who likewise strengthened you in faith, Cody, on March 8, 2010 at St. Dominic Parish in Swansea.

We know what happened on Pentecost. The Holy Spirit worked a moral miracle in the lives of the apostles in the Upper Room. On Holy Thursday, despite their promises that they would never betray the Lord, the apostles left the Last Supper and all of them let the Lord down. 53 days later, after the Holy Spirit descended upon them as tongues of fire, they left that same Upper Room and courageously bore witness to Christ even to the point of death. That’s the difference that the Holy Spirit makes. He does the same thing in marriage. He takes the natural love of a man and woman for each other and strengthens it, raising marriage up to the dignity of a sacrament, a sign and means of intimate loving communion with God. Here the Holy Spirit who came down upon each of you in Confirmation wants to come down upon your marriage to fortify you to love each other not just with human love, but with the very love of God.

In the first reading from the Book of Sirach, we hear sung the praises of a good, worthy and virtuous wife, who brings joy to her husband and radiance to her home. That’s the type of wife and generous gift you want to be, Kimberly, for Cody. The Holy Spirit wants to help you become that type of wife and mother.

In the second reading, St. Paul instructs you, “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for Pentecost Sunday (B)

May 22, 2021

 

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The following text guided the homily: 

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

* In the Gospel we have, Jesus tells the first apostles in the Upper Room on Easter Sunday evening, and all of us, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” What does it mean to receive the Holy Spirit?

* Many have not received the Holy Spirit. There’s a famous scene in the Acts of the Apostles when St. Paul came to Ephesus and met some disciples. He asked, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” They responded, “We have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” Pope-emeritus Benedict, at World Youth Day in Australia in 2008, said, “The Holy Spirit has been in some ways the neglected person of the Blessed Trinity,” and confessed that it was only as a young priest teaching theology that he began not only to recognize the importance that the Holy Spirit should play in his life as a priest and professor but that he came to know him intimately. He added, “It is not enough to know the Spirit; we must welcome Him as the guide of our souls, as the ‘Teacher of the interior life’ who introduces us to the Mystery of the Trinity, because He alone can open us up to faith and allow us to live it each day to the full.” And we don’t have to be a member of the Charismatic Renewal to allow the Holy Spirit to become that teacher and guide. If we wish to understand the faith, if we wish to live it, if we wish to pass it on, we must allow ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit, even if we, like Joseph Ratzinger, are beginning as adults. For us, the “great unknown” must become the “great known,” the teacher, the leader, the consoler, the advocate.

* During the Last Supper, Jesus said something truly shocking about the Holy Spirit. He said, ““I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” Jesus is basically declaring that if we have a choice between Him and the Holy Spirit, we should choose the latter. That’s how important he says the Holy Spirit is.The great joy is that we don’t have to have to choose between the two. It is crucial, however, for us to ponder the role of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life and to examine whether we’ve received the Holy Spirit within us at the depth at which he wants to go.

* We can learn a lot about how to receive the Holy Spirit through remembering what happened on the first Pentecost. Before his Ascension Jesus had enjoined the apostles not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the “promise of the Father” about which they had heard him speak, for “in a few days,” he said, “you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” The apostles and the other followers of Jesus very wisely huddled around Mary and “devoted themselves with one accord to prayer.” They prayed together with Mary in order to learn from her how to get ready to receive the Holy Spirit, for it was she who was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit at Jesus’ virginal conception and who continually lived as a Spouse of the Holy Spirit, receiving and responding to his inspirations in an exemplary way. United with her they prayed and they waited. Jesus hadn’t told them how long they were to wait in prayerful expectation. So their first holy hour stretched into a day of recollection.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

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

Friday of the Seventh Week of Easter

Memorial of St. Christopher Magallanes and Companions

May 21, 2021

Acts 25:13-21, Ps 103, Jn 21:15-19

 

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

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The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* In today’s Gospel, we have one of the most powerful and poignant scenes in the Gospel, which the Church gives us to help us to summarize the graces of the Easter Season and to send us forward into Pentecost and beyond. It’s a continuation, in a sense, of the Easter Octave, since it’s the second half of the Gospel we had on Easter Friday, April 9. Jesus meets Peter and six other disciples on the seashore of Galilee where he cooks them breakfast. At the end of the meal, he takes Simon Peter aside in order to restore his confidence after having totally denied Jesus three times on Holy Thursday just a couple of hours after saying that even if he should have to die for Jesus, he would never betray him. Peter was not yet able to experience the joy of Jesus’ resurrection fully because of the trauma of his sins. But Jesus needed him. Jesus wanted to solidify the rock on whom he was building his Church. So in response to Peter’s three-fold denial, Jesus gave him a chance to make a three-fold affirmation of love.

* Buried within their dialogue is a real drama, but to see it, we have to know a little Greek. The first time Jesus asks Peter if he loves him, the word he uses for love is agape, which means a total self-sacrificial type of love, the type of love Jesus himself showed when he said, “No one has any greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.” “Simon, son of John,” he was asking, “do you love me with agape?” Peter’s response, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you,” doesn’t use the word “agape,” but rather “philia.” He replies, in other words, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you as a friend.” Peter, after having broken his promise to die for Jesus before he ever would deny him, wasn’t going to make the same promise again. He was still carrying around the weight of his betrayal. Jesus had called him a friend during the Last Supper because he had revealed to him and the other apostles all that the Father had told him, but he had been stripped of the confidence that had made him commit to love Jesus by Jesus’ life-giving standard, that the greatest love is to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. So Jesus asked him a second time, “Peter, do you love me with agape, with total self-sacrificial love?” Peter replied again, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you with philia, as a friend.” So Jesus in the third question lowered himself to where Peter was comfortable and asked, “Simon, Son of John, do you love me with philia?” That’s when Peter was distressed. He knew the Lord was calling him to more but the Lord was acknowledging that Peter didn’t think he was capable of heroic love. He replied, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you as a friend.” Jesus, however, wasn’t going to leave Peter there. He said to him that when he was younger, he used to dress himself and go about as he pleased. But when Peter would grow old, another would “stretch out his hands” — a Greek euphemism for crucifixion — and lead him to a place he didn’t want to go, something, St. John said, was indicating the type of death by which Peter would glorify God. Jesus was telling him, “Even if you don’t want to say again publicly that you love me enough to die for me, you will love me that way, even being crucified for me.” And Jesus to emphasize the point said to him, “Follow me,” because Peter would follow him all the way.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

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

Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter

May 20, 2021

Acts 22:30.23:6-11, Ps 16, Jn 17:20-26

 

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

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The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today as we continue our preparations for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we are provoked by today’s readings to examine the Holy Spirit’s work of unity. He is the personified loving union between the Father and the Son and he has been sent by the Father and the Son so that we might enter into that communion with God and with others, so that we might become one Body, one Spirit, in Christ. The ultimate, eschatological battle in which all of creation is engaged is one of communion versus disunity. Jesus came to reconcile all things in himself, to draw all things to himself on the Cross, to make us one flock with one Shepherd. This will culminate in heaven, when we hope to enter into the communion of saints within the communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But it is opposed by the work of the devil, who is always seeking to isolate us, divide us, and permanently alienate us from God and from others. The most accurate image of Hell is not one full of flames; it’s one in which everyone is as far as possible away from others… The choices we make here on earth are ultimately able to be understood as choices for or against communion with God and others.

* Jesus prays in the Gospel that we might be as united with each other as Father and Son are united, something that’s impossible for us but not impossible for God. This communion of saints among the communion who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the Spirit’s principal work. Everything else is an explicitation of that mission. Jesus prays for the success of that Mission in today’s Gospel with insistence, begging him that we might be one so that the world might know that he was sent by the Father and that the Father loves us just as he loves him. That’s an extraordinary prayer that points to the Holy Spirit’s mission. The world will be convinced of Jesus’ presence and mission by the way we’re united with each other. The world will be convinced of God’s personal love for each of us by the way love each other. Our union, our Christian communion brought about by the Holy Spirit, is the most important element of the new evangelization. That’s why we pray for that unity at every Mass as well, uniting ourselves as Bride to Bridegroom, as Body to Head, praying for that gift.

We might be tempted to dismiss Jesus’ prayer as something that sounds beautiful, but which is obviously utopian and beyond our grasp. But Jesus would never have prayed for something impossible. He, through whom we and the whole world were created, never engaged in “wishful thinking.” He not only knew the Truth about us and God, but enfleshed that Truth, fully aware of what was possible and what was not. It is also true that the Father would never refuse the prayer of his Son. As Jesus prayed before the raising of Lazarus, “I thank you, Father, for having heard me. I know that you always hear me” (Jn 11:42). The Father always hears his prayer. Therefore, if Jesus were praying that we be one, that we be as united among ourselves as are the Persons in the Blessed Trinity and that we abide in them as they abide in each other, then that must mean it is possible and is what should be the reality among us. This dual communion is, in fact, what will happen in heaven. If by God’s mercy we follow Christ all the way to heaven, we will be in full communion with the Communion-of-Persons-in-Love who is the Holy Trinity and in that communion, we will be in full communion with everyone else ...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

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

Wednesday of the Seventh Week of Easter

May 19, 2021

Acts 20:28-38, Ps 68, Jn 17:11-19

 

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

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The following points were considered in today’s homily: 

* Today we continue to ponder the valedictory words of Jesus in the Upper Room and of St. Paul in Melitus. Jesus’ words were to the Father, but he said them aloud so that the apostles could hear them — and through them, we could hear them — and that we might “share [Jesus’] joy completely.” They were also given to us so that we might become Jesus’ glory through coming fully alive in him and so that the Father might be glorified in the Son through our having life and joy to the full in the Son. St. Paul’s words were to the presbyters of Ephesus, so that they could continue the work that St. Paul had laborered for “three years, night and day … with tears.” As we’ll see, St. Paul’s words were an echo of what Jesus prayed to the Father.

* Today Jesus stresses his relationship to the Father and to the world and the relationship he wishes us to have to the Father and the world.

* He says that he’s one with the Father and he wants us to be as united to each other as the Father and the Son are united. We will focus on this more tomorrow. What joy we have from being in loving communion with God and each other!

* He stresses twice that he doesn’t belong to the world and we shouldn’t belong to the world, emphasizing that we do not belong to the world “any more” than he does. Those are extraordinary words. He says that we’re supposed to have the same relationship to the world that he does and that we shouldn’t belong to the world any more than he. What joy we have when we are not enslaved to the world!

* He asks the Father to consecrate us so that we might belong — not to the world — but to the Father just like he belongs to the Father, just as Jesus does. To be consecrated means to be cut off from the profane (sacer) to be with (con) God to such a degree that we share the mission the Father gave the Son. Jesus wants to cut us off from the world to be united to him so that united to him we might come out of love for the world to continue his work, so that the world might be saved. What joy we have to belong to the Father like Jesus does!

* The way we will be consecrated to the Father is “in the truth” of his word. He is the Truth. He is the Word made flesh. To be consecrated in the truth means that we remain in him. It also means that we earnestly seek to remain in him through his Word, that we listen to his words as words to be done, words that help us to enter more deeply into the communion of God. That means we are “living the truth” and not attached to the world and the prince of this world, who is the father of lies. What joy we have because of the gift of God’s word, to know it, to live by it, to trust in it!

* To be consecrated means to belong to him, the Word made Flesh, to such a degree that we share his mission. His sending us into the world just as the Father sent him can only happen when we’re consecrated as a part of his Mystical Body, when we bring into the world the truth of his word. Pope Francis says famously in his exhortation The Joy of the Gospel that we evangelize precisely because of the joy we have in our relationship with God, something we cannot keep to ourselves. We know the different Jesus makes and we want others to experience that same joy.

* He asks the Father to protect us, just as Jesus himself sought to protect us in the Father’s name. He says that the world will hate us because, like him, we do not belong to the world,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter

May 18, 2021

Acts 20:17-27, Ps 68, Jn 17:1-11

 

To listen to today’s homily, please click below:

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The following points were considered in the homily: 

* One of the most important things in life is to have a clear sense of our goal, our direction, our purpose. As the old aphorism goes, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will do.” Many people are lost, even in the midst of hurried journeying, because they don’t really have a clear sense of the ultimate direction of their life. St. Ignatius of Loyola called us to make decisions as if we were doing them before the Lord our Judge looking back over our whole life, because thinking in light of eternity can help us to discern what is truly important. The Imitation of Christ likewise urges us to live each day as if it is our last, because, one again, if we knew that our time was limited, we’d prioritize the important and let the unimportant pass.

* In today’s readings, we see two great examples of living with a clear purpose that comes from God.

* In the Gospel, taken from Jesus’ priestly prayer on Holy Thursday on which we will focus mystagogically through Thursday, we see why Jesus was living. He was living to glorify the Father. He asked God the Father to glorify him so that he could in turn glorify the Father. He glorified the Father by accomplishing the work the Father had given him to do, the work of revealing the Father’s love to the extreme in saving his sons and daughters. He also glorified the Father by leaving the disciples in the world so that they in turn could continue that saving work. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus, the Light of the World, said that his disciples would reflect his light and that others, in seeing their good deeds of love, would glorify God the Father in heaven. The greatest glorification of God the Father would take place when Jesus was exalted on the Cross. And the most luminescent, greatest, most glorifying act on our part l is when we are lifted up on the Cross with Jesus, when we are willing to lay down our lives out of love for others, in simple deeds all the way to martyrdom. So Jesus’ glorifying of the Father was to accomplish his work of salvation, to reveal the Father’s name. God had revealed himself as “I am who am” to Moses, but when Jesus came, He-who-is revealed him to be God-with-us (Emmanuel) as God-who-saves-us (Jesus). To reveal the Father’s name meant to allow people to enter into an I-thou relationship with God’s person, to know him personally as the God who is with them to save them out of love. His whole mission was to introduce us into eternal life which is to know God in this way, a personal, loving knowledge that will last forever. That is the great glory of the Father when we, through that knowledge, become men and women fully alive (St. Ireneus).

* Someone who glorified God in this way and led many others to do so is St. Paul. Today and tomorrow we have his valedictory address to the Church in Ephesus, meeting with them at the port of Miletus. He describes his sufferings, tears and trials, the imprisonments and hardships that he endured and those that still awaited him, but through all of it, he says, he “did not shrink from telling you what was for your benefit,” “from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God,” from “bear[ing] witness to the Gospel of God’s grace,” doing so in the square and in private, “in public or in your homes.” That “Gospel of God’s grace” was that God was with them personally to save them, calling them to intimacy with him. As he said to the Romans elsewhere, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Monday of the Seventh Week of Easter

May 17, 2021

Acts 19:1-8, Ps 68, Jn 16:29-33

 

To listen to today’s homily, please click below:

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.17.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today in the Gospel there’s a dramatic exchange, taken from the Last Supper, between Jesus and the apostles. Immediately before this scene, in what we heard on Saturday, Jesus had said that the hour was coming when he would no longer speak in figures of speech — parables — but would tell us clearly about the Father. He told them straight out that the Father loves them, that he had come from the Father into the world, and was about to leave the world to go back to the Father. That leads them to exclaim, in today’s continuation, “Now you are talking plainly, and not in any figure of speech. Now we realize that you know everything and that you do not need to have anyone question you. Because of this we believe that you came from God.” They imply that they had been waiting for Jesus’ clear and direct speech to believe and now that he was addressing them in this way they were convinced believers. Jesus, however, reminds them that faith has consequences with regard to the courage to live by faith. “Do you believe now?,” he retorts. “Behold, the hour is coming and has arrived when each of you will be scattered to his own home and you will leave me alone.” Jesus’ words would be fulfilled within hours as everyone scattered from Gethsemane and only one of them was with Jesus on Calvary. Faith isn’t merely an acceptance of certain declarations as true; it’s a total trust given to a person on the basis of which one believes in what the person says and does. They didn’t yet have the courage in Jesus, in his coming from the Father and returning to the Father, in his carrying out the Father’s plan of love, to remain faithful under trial. And Jesus told them both what would happen as well as how they would have their faith challenged, that they would fail “so that you might have peace in me.” He wanted them to maintain their peace in the crucible, the way the Blessed Virgin Mary did at the foot of the Cross despite her tears. Jesus summed up his words saying, “In the world you will have trouble,” just like he was about to experience imminently, namely of all the trouble caused by sin, “but take courage, I have conquered the world.” These words were said before Jesus’ resurrection, because he had already conquered the world in his incarnation, in the plan he was carrying out. The resurrection was the dramatic public sign of that victory that Jesus had already been achieving. The source of our courage is Jesus’ triumph, and that triumph was already being accomplished even as it seemed all was being lost. We need to believe in that triumph especially when we have trouble. Just like the apostles needed to hear Jesus’ words, “Take courage, I have overcome the world!,” when they saw him on Calvary, so we need to take courage when we see the places where the Church is being persecuted, when we see people wandering away from prayer and the Sacraments, when we see things that in the eyes of the world are simply disheartening. Jesus wants us to take courage because he in fact is triumphing, seeking to bring good out of evil, victory out of defeat.

* We know that the apostles left the Upper Room that night and weren’t courageous. Rather than remaining in his peace, they scattered. They weren’t focused on Jesus’ conquering the world but on how the world seemed to be conquering him. But as we know, 53 days later they would leave that same Upper Room and fearlessly proclaim Jesus eternal victory. The change happened through the gift that Jesus promised the F...