Catholic Preaching

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs, Auriesville, New York

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

June 20, 2021

Job 38:1.8-11, Ps 107, 2 Cor 5:14-17, Mk 4:35-41

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.20.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

* Today’s Gospel about Jesus’ calming of the winds and the seas is much more than a demonstration of the Lord’s power over the forces of nature. He who with a word created the heavens and the earth, the seas and all they contain, with a word could calm them. And, as we see in the Gospel, he did.

* Neither is today’s Gospel is a manifestation of the failure of the apostles to believe in this power of Jesus. They knew that he had the power, which is why they woke him up in the first place. In the days immediately preceding this miracle, they had already seen him cast out demons, cure Simon Peter’s mother-in-law and others who were ill, heal lepers, forgive the sins and paralysis of a crippled man, and straighten a man’s withered hand. There were no doubts about Jesus’ omnipotence.

* The point of today’s Gospel is that, even though they knew Jesus had the power to calm the seas and the wind, they began to doubt whether he had the will to do so. It is a display of their failure to believe in Jesus’ love for them. We see this in the question they asked as soon as they startled Jesus from what must have been a very deep and long-overdue sleep on an uncomfortable and rocky boat: “Master, do you not care that we are perishing?” Do you not care? They had begun to doubt whether Jesus gave a hoot whether they drowned in the lake. They had begun to question whether he was indifferent to their plight. “Teacher, do you not care that we are about to die?”

* Jesus’ whole life, of course, is an answer to that question. He did care that we were about to die and that was the reason why the Son of God, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, took our human nature and was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He cared enough that he spent himself to the point of exhaustion teaching, healing the sick and comforting the afflicted. He cared enough ultimately to take our place on death row, giving his life so that we might survive. Yes, he did care! Like Jonah, who was tossed into the sea in order to calm the ferocious storm of the sea, so Jesus tossed himself overboard to quell the tempests that were causing us to die. As he hurled himself into the abyss from the Cross, he calmed the storm of sin so that we might reach the eternal shore. He did care!

* The problem was that the apostles doubted in his loving concern. In this the twelve were like the twelve tribes of Israel 1300 years before. After they had witnessed God’s hand in the ten plagues of Egypt, after they had seen him part the Red Sea, after they had seen Pharoah’s horsemen and chariots perish in the sea, after they had witnessed Moses strike the rock to provide them water, after they had been fed miraculously with manna and then quails from heaven, after they had seen the thunder and lightening of Moses’ conversations with God on the top of Mt. Sinai, the Jews continued to doubt in God’s love for them. They obviously knew that God had the power — he had already shown them this power on all these occasions — but they doubted whether he would continue to use that power to help them. “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt,” they complained to Moses, “that you have taken us away to die in the desert?” (Ex 14:11). Whenever anything got difficult, they grumbled. They doubted. They began to whether God’s solicitude had an expiration date. His past actions didn’t factor into their equation.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), Vigil

June 19, 2021

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.19.21_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 this Sunday. Last week, we recall, Jesus gave us two parables about the growth of faith. This Sunday he puts the disciples in a boot camp experience on the Sea of Galilee to test their faith and help it to grow. The Gospel of Jesus’ calming of the winds and the seas is much more than a demonstration of the Lord’s power over the forces of nature. He who with a word created the heavens and the earth, the seas and all they contain, with a word could calm them. And, as we see in the Gospel, he did. Neither is Sunday’s Gospel a manifestation of the failure of the apostles to believe in this power of Jesus. They knew that he had the power, which is why they woke him up in the first place. In the days immediately preceding this miracle, they had already seen him cast out demons, cure Simon Peter’s mother-in-law and others who were ill, heal lepers, forgive the sins and paralysis of a crippled man, and straighten a man’s withered hand. There were no doubts about Jesus’ omnipotence.

* The point of Sunday’s Gospel is that, even though they knew Jesus had the power to calm the seas and the wind, they began to doubt whether he would do so. It is a display of their failure to believe in Jesus’ love for them. We see this in the question they asked as soon as they startled Jesus from what must have been a very deep and long-overdue sleep on an uncomfortable and rocky boat: “Master, do you not care that we are perishing?” Do you not care?! They had begun to doubt whether Jesus gave a hoot whether they drowned in the lake. They had begun to question whether he was indifferent to their plight. “Teacher, do you not care that we are about to die?”

* Jesus’ whole life, of course, is an answer to that question. He did care that we were about to die and that was the reason why the Son of God, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, took our human nature and was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He cared enough that he spent himself to the point of exhaustion teaching, healing the sick and comforting the afflicted. He cared enough ultimately to take our place on death row, giving his life so that we might survive. Yes, he did care! Like Jonah, who was tossed into the sea in order to calm the ferocious storm of the sea, so Jesus tossed himself overboard to quell the tempests that were causing us to die. As he hurled himself into the abyss from the Cross, he calmed the storm of sin so that we might reach the eternal shore. He did care!

* The problem was that the apostles doubted in his loving concern. In this the twelve were like the twelve tribes of Israel 1300 years before. After they had witnessed God’s hand in the ten plagues of Egypt, after they had seen him part the Red Sea, after they had seen pharoah’s horsemen and chariots perish in the sea, after they had witnessed Moses’ strike the rock to provide them water, after they had been fed miraculously with manna and then quails from heaven, after they had seen the thunder and lightening of Moses’ conversations with God on the top of Mt. Sinai, the Jews continued to doubt in God’s love for them. They obviously knew that God had the power — he had already shown them this power on all these occasions — but they doubted whether he would continu...

Fr. Roger Landry

Chapel of the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See, Manhattan

Saturday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time

June 19, 2021

2 Cor 12:1-10, Ps 34, Mt 6:24-34

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.19.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* In yesterday’s section of the Gospel, taken from this 16-day annual treatment of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus spoke to us about what treasure our heart was seeking, whether we were attempting to amass treasure in this world or in his everlasting kingdom. On the heels of that distinction, today Jesus discusses how our actions flow from the treasure our heart is desiring: whether we’re planning to serve God or serve mammon and makes clear that we can’t serve both simultaneously, for we “will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.” This was a truth every Jew of the age knew because to be a slave at that time meant a total commitment; one was always at the Master’s call; there was no way to serve two masters at the same time because that would always be a situation of irresolvable conflict. One had to win. We can only have one supreme desire or aspiration. Once we determine that, then everything else becomes relative to that absolute.

* Why would people choose to serve mammon instead of the Lord? Why would they seek to store up fleeting treasure here in this world? Jesus gives an indication in his use of the word “therefore” which links what he said about serving two masters to everything that comes later. It’s not fundamentally about a “lust of the eyes,” as St. John would call it, a desire for material things for their own sake. It’s because of anxiety, specifically fear that one won’t have what one needs. Because of this fear, one begins to place one’s heart — faith, hope, love, security — in material things. That’s why he gives five different reasons to help them and us place our trust in God and in his providential care and two straightforward commands flowing from that trust. Let’s tackle them:

*  “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” — Jesus tells us that if God has given us life, he will give us what that life needs. He hasn’t brought us into existence so that we will starve to death, parched and naked!

* “Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?” — Jesus has us turn to the fact that we’ve never seen an uncaged bird die of malnutrition. If God makes sure they have enough food, he’ll give us even more fatherly attention.

* “Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?” — Worrying, in other words, accomplishes nothing positive and is useless. But dread can make the time we do have miserable, incapable of living happily in the present and often missing the gifts God gives us at every instant.

* “Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?” — When we learn the lesson of the wild flowers, the scarlet poppies and the anemones that are found on the hillsides in Palestine, we see that God invests them with extraordinary beauty but only for a day. The day after they bloom, they lose their beauty and they’re good for nothing but to be thrown a...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Friday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

June 18, 2021

2 Cor 11:18.21-30, Ps 34, Mt 6:19-23

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.18.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today in the Gospel, Jesus, as he has been doing throughout the Sermon on the Mount, continues to teach us the wisdom of how to live as he lives, how to live to the full, so that with him we may live forever. He exhorts us to set our hearts on the true treasure of his kingdom, a treasure not measured in clothing moths can wreck, or metals rust can corrode, or money thieves or taxes can take. He reminds us that our heart will be where our treasure is. If we’re setting our hearts on this-worldly treasures — pleasure, getting our way, health, fame, material possessions big or small — our hearts will be weighed down and enslaved, and it will be difficult to lift them to the Lord. If we set our hearts on the kingdom, on storing up for ourselves treasure in heaven, then we can turn everything into an investment in eternity. Jesus says something similar in his image of the eye. He reminds us that the eye is the lamp of the body. If it is fixed on God, if it sees clearly and purely in his holy light, then the body and soul will be filled with light; but if is blinded by the shadows of the concupiscence of the flesh (lust), of the eyes (materialism) or of the pride of life (for power or control), the whole body will be and walk in darkness.

* So today is an opportunity for us to examine our eyes and hearts to see whether they’re truly set on God and the things of God. The Light has come into the world, as St. John tells us in his Prologue, but we need to choose the light instead of darkness, to purify our hearts of desires unworthy of the kingdom, to cleanse our eyes of any debris that keeps us from seeing Christ in the persons and events of the day.

* St. Paul was one who purified his heart and eyes in the manner in which Jesus is calling us all to do. He fixed his eyes and heart on Christ and began to order everything in such a way that not only did he amass an enormous, indestructible spiritual treasure but enriched us all by that same wealth given to him by God. Today’s first reading features a passage in which he summarized all of his sufferings. For me it’s one of the most moving passages in Sacred Scripture because it shows how much Paul loved the Lord, how much he was willing to undergo to obtain the treasure and to help us to grasp the inheritance Christ has won for us and is offering for us. He was in the middle of a conversation with the Corinthians with regard to the impostors who had come among them sowing darnel and bragging about their credentials. So he bragged about his own. He checked off the box that he was a Hebrew (not just a Jew but a Hebrew-speaking Jew, a real pride of honor among the Jews of Palestine versus those of the diaspora), a descendent of Abraham and a minister of Christ. He said he was all of that and more. Adding to his credentials, he presented the ways he had been crucified with Christ through labors, imprisonments, beatings and numerous brushes with death. “Five times at the hands of the Jews I received forty lashes minus one [which often killed the recipient]; three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned [and basically killed before the prayers of the Church raised him from the dead], three times I was shipwrecked, I passed a night and a day on the deep; on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own race, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Thursday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

June 17, 2021

2 Cor 11:1-11, Ps 111, Mt 6:7-15

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.17.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shows us how to become “perfect as [our] heavenly Father is perfect,” how to fulfill the law, how to have our righteousness surpass that of the Scribes and the Pharisees, how to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, how to build our life on the rock. The main point of it all is our relationship with God the Father. Yesterday he told us to pray, fast and give alms not to win acclaim but out of love for the Father, seeking what he seeks, hungering for what he hungers, sharing the providential care he has placed into our hands. On Saturday we will ponder Jesus’ words about how we should not worry about what we are to eat, drink, or wear or where we are to sleep because our Heavenly Father loves us more than the sparrows and lilies and will care for us. He’ll tell us elsewhere that he will never give us a stone when we ask for bread. The Sermon on the Mount, which is a compendium of the Christian life, is geared to Jesus’ helping us learn how to relate to God the Father. The pinnacle of that instruction is, of course, the way he teaches us to enter into the total exchange of persons that is faithful prayer. He does so by his own example of prayer, by his testimony of the proper dispositions we need to pray well, by his letting us eavesdrop on his own prayers — all of which begin with “Abba” — but most of all through the Lord’s Prayer, or Our Father, he gives us today in the Gospel.

* For us as Christians, prayer is to be an intimate conversation with a Father who loves us and already knows what we need. The first word Jesus teaches us is “Abba!” We’re to pray to a loving “daddy.” That word already sums up to a large degree who he is, who we are, and how we’re supposed to relate to him. And when we’re relating to him in love, then we begin to focus on him. The first petition is that his name be hallowed rather than ours, and the way is name is hallowed is not just in our prayer but particularly through the Christian life of Christ-like love when others “seeing [our] good deeds glorify [our] Father in heaven” (Mt 5:16). We beg that his kingdom come and his will be done, rather than our own. We begin, in short, by asking for everything related to God’s glory, kingdom and will.  A loving son or daughter wants what’s best for a parent — just like a parent wants what’s best for a child — and we begin praying not for ourselves and our needs but for God and his desires, knowing that God’s desires are for us to be holy by hallowing his name (the path to our own happiness!), for us to enter his kingdom fully as heirs, and for us to do his will on earth so that we may do it forever in heaven.

* From there Jesus teaches us to turn to our own needs. The first thing we ask the Father is each day to give us our “supersubstantial” (epiousios) bread. This refers not just to the material sustenance we need for the day but also for what goes beyond our material substance, a reference that many of the early saints — and St. Cyprian in today’s Office of Readings — interpreted as a clear reference to Jesus in the Eucharist, the true Manna whom God the Father rains down each day to help us to hallow his name, enter and proclaim his kingdom and do his will. Jesus opens us up to the Father’s providence. Next we ask the Father for mercy, of which we’re always in need,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelein, Illinois

Catholic Medical Association Boot Camp for Medical Students and Residents

June 14, 2021

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.14.21_Forms_Fonts_Guides_and_Expressions_of_Prayer_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelein, Illinois

Catholic Medical Association Boot Camp for Medical Students and Residents

June 14, 2021

 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.14.21_Lord_Teach_Me_To_Pray_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelein, Illinois

Catholic Medical Association Boot Camp for

Medical Students and Residents

June 14, 2021

 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.14.21_Necessity_of_Prayer_1.mp3

 

 

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelein, Illinois

Catholic Medical Association Boot Camp for Medical Students and Residents

Monday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

June 14, 2021

2 Cor 6:1-10, Ps 98, Mt 5:38-42

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.14.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today we’re one week into our annual 16-day meditation on Jesus’ words to us in the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus gives us an image of how he lives and how we’re supposed to live as his disciples. He explicitly calls us with him to fulfill the law, to surpass the standards of righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, to surpass the standards of the pagans who love those who love them, but to live by Jesus’ own standards, encouraging us to make his words and his example the rock on which we build our life.

* Today we enter into the heart of the contrast between Jesus’ standards and those of the pagans, the Scribes and the Pharisees. Jesus talks about the Law of Talion, which antedates the Old Testament, but was included in the law of Moses, which sought to limit vengeance by saying, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Merely limiting retaliation, however, wasn’t enough for Jesus. He wanted us to stand up for our dignity while, as he would say later, loving even those who are making themselves our enemies. To turn the other cheek as someone was seeking to backhand us was not principally to be beaten on the other cheek with a forehand but to stand for one’s dignity not to be slapped by preventing one from backhanding us again. It was a means to prevent our being eaten away by resentment by affirming that we’re not resisting but we’re also not giving the other person an opportunity to offend our dignity and his own. Jesus would build on this in the other examples he gives. If someone wants to have our tunic or inner garment, he tells us to give our cloak or jacket, and if he wants us to be pressed into service to deliver something for one mile, that we should go for two. The lesson in all of the examples is the same. It’s the lesson Jesus himself taught in his Good Shepherd Discourse: “No one takes my life from me. I freely lay it down” (Jn 10:18). Rather than being victimized, we willingly participate with love. He wants us to triumph over evil not by allowing it to triumph over us but by responding with love to others’ hatred. Far more courage and virtue are required to be a disciple than to fight evil with more evil. These are Jesus’ standards, to give to the one who asks rather than worrying about the quid pro quo, not to turn our back to someone in need no matter how many times others — or even that person — have turned backs on us. This is the way our righteousness will surpass the scribes and pharisees. This is the way we will love not only those who love us but love like Jesus. This is super challenging teaching but it is part of the truth that sets us free. As Christians we always fight back with love, for if we don’t, to paraphrase St. Paul, we’re nothing more than noisy gongs and clashing cymbals and will gain nothing (1 Cor 13:1-8).

* St. Paul is someone who certainly lived and loved by Jesus’ standards. In the first reading he calls the Corinthians and us urgently to let our lives be transformed by them as well. He reminds us that God gives us his grace today — that now is the acceptable time and the day of salvation — and prays that we will not waste that grace. These worldly hardships and annoyances Jesus describes in the Sermon are all graces to sculpt us more and more in his divine image. St. Paul himself suffered all of the indignities to w...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), Vigil

June 12, 2021

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.12.21_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 this Sunday as we enter anew into the Sundays of Ordinary Time. Over the last three weeks, we have celebrated the birthday of the Church on Pentecost, the feast of the Holy Trinity, which is the model of the communion of the Church, and Corpus Christi and pondered how the Church draws her life from Jesus in the Eucharist. This Sunday, with two parables on the Kingdom of God, Jesus speaks to us about the way the Church grows.

* The first image is of a farmer who scatters seed on his farmland. Without his knowing how and without effort on his part, day and night, the seed begins to grow, yielding the blade, the ear, and the grain until harvest time. The seed does this, Jesus notes, “of its own accord.” This teaches us that the growth of the kingdom, the growth of the Church as a spiritual reality, is not fundamentally our work, but God’s. Imperceptibly, patiently, constantly, it grows. The second image is the more well-known one of the mustard seed, which is very tiny as it is sown in the ground, but through that process of growth Jesus mentions in the first parable, springs up and can become one of the largest of plants where the birds can come to dwell. The kingdom can be at times very small, seemingly insignificant, but Jesus says, it contains within the power of God to grow to be enormous.

* Taken together these images convey to us a sense of the wonder we should have with regard to the Church as a spiritual reality and God’s role in its growth. We’re tempted to look at the Church sometimes too much as an institution, as a human organization, that we must build, like entrepreneurs build a business. We sing songs like, “Let us build the City of God,” which, materially, is similar to the ancients’ saying, “Let us build the Tower of Babel.” Jesus is saying by these images that we don’t build it; he does. The farmer certainly does a little of the work, sowing the seed and tilling the soil, but most of the work happens by what is contained in the seed, what is contained in the soil, and the water and sunshine that God provides. So it is with growth in the Church. God gives the seed of faith, he provides the water of the sacraments, the sunshine of various blessings, the nutrients in the soil like teaching and formation necessary. And because God is involved, we should have confidence in every age.

* For me, the Parable of the Mustard Seed is a great source of hope. Even though the kingdom begins very small, in the heart of one faithful person, over time, it can grow huge. This is, of course, what we see in how the Kingdom began in the Annunciation, when out of Mary’s yes, the Seed (with a capital S) conceived within her by the power of the Holy Spirit, began to grow and eventually all nations would be embraced in the branches of his arms on the Cross. We saw that this is what happened on Pentecost, when out of this small band of apostles, the Church started and experienced extraordinary growth. We’ve seen this happen in the founding of parishes out of a few committed families, of religious movements and orders that began only with the founder, and in families when one person’s conversion led to the conversion of so many other generations.