Catholic Preaching

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:

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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,

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

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.26.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

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: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.25.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

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: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.24.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

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,