Fr. Roger J. Landry

Brief Course on Prayer for the Leonine Forum

Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the UN

January 30, 2021

 

To listen to the first talk on the necessity of prayer, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.30.21_LF_Necessity_of_Prayer_1.mp3

 

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Saturday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Votive Mass of Mary, Pillar of Faith

January 30, 2021

Heb 11:1-2.8-19, Lk 1:69-75, Mk 4:35-41

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.30.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Throughout this week, Jesus has been teaching us and helping us to grow in faith. Over the last few days he’s been talking about what faith is and does — that faith is like rich soil that hears the seed of God’s word, accepts it wholeheartedly and bears abundant fruit; that faith is meant to illumine others like a light set on a lamp stand; that faith is meant to grow through exercising it in acts of faith; that faith is like a mustard seed that God wants to help grow to become the biggest of shrubs — but today Jesus puts the disciples in a bootcamp experience to test their faith and help it to grow. The training happens on the Sea of Galilee.

* Jesus tells them, as night was coming, to get into the boat with him and cross to the other side. Jesus was so exhausted that he fell asleep in the stern of the boat and remained asleep even when the boat was beginning to rock, even when the waves that were “breaking over the boat” were doubtless splashing him in the face. Those storms were common to the Sea of Galilee because of the latitudinal mountain ranges stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Sea of Galilee that served as a wind tunnel and caused serious storms to begin almost out of nowhere. In the middle of the storm, the disciples didn’t respond with faith. They didn’t cry out to the Lord in prayer. They didn’t have confidence in the love of the Lord remaining with them. They feared for their life. They woke Jesus and said, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Do you not care? Their fears had gotten them to think Jesus was totally insensitive to their plight and to completing his own mission for the salvation of the world! Jesus got up and rebuked the wind and the sea, calming it. Then he rebuked the disciples. He asked, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” Jesus allowed the entire storm to occur as a test of faith, to help them in the midst of it to pass the test so that their faith might grow.

* Jesus allows us to pass through similar tests, through analogous storms. The storms of pain and suffering, the storms of the suffering and death of loved ones, the storms of anxiety, failure, and various problems, the storms of temptations sometimes quite fierce so that in the midst of all of these tests, we might grow in faith. Every test of faith we can pass, and when we do, our faith grows. But it’s important that when we’re being tested, we respond not just with a vague perseverance, but by growing in trust of God and in trust of all that he has promised, because he is faithful to his promises.

* That’s what today’s first reading is about. The eleventh and twelfth chapters of the Letter to the Hebrews are among the most inspirational sections of the entire Bible. Yesterday we finished the tenth chapter focusing on the holy hypomone — perseverance — God wants us to have in contrast to those who “draw back.” We pondered how the early Christians allowed themselves to be dispossessed of so many of their earthly possessions — even their life! — because they knew that they had a greater possession (hyparxin) in God in faith. Today the Letter to the Hebrews builds on it. It defines faith as “the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” Faith is the hypostasis, the substance, the down payment, of what we hope for, the evidence of what we do not yet see but know is coming.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

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

January 30, 2021

 

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

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The text that guided the homily is: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy to have a chance to ponder with you the consequential conversation Jesus wants to have with us this Sunday when we willsee him enter a synagogue on the Sabbath day and teach. All those who listened to him, St. Mark tells us, were “astounded at his teaching, for he taught with authority and not like the scribes.” He then showed the tremendous power of his authoritative words by silencing and casting out a demon from a man, which amazed the crowd even further. “What is this?,” they asked,  A new teaching — with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”

* The same Jesus who entered the Capernaum synagogue on the Jewish Sabbath enters our parishes on the Christian Sabbath. And he teaches with the same authority he wielded two thousand years ago. He speaks to us in the word of God and later he who created the heavens and the earth with his word, who called fishermen and tax collectors to follow him so powerfully that at his summons they immediately got up and did so, does something far more amazing than cast out a devil or silence a stormy storm. He changes bread and wine into God, into his body and blood, and casts himself into us. If we recognize what is really going on, if we awaken to the power of his words, people today ought to be far more amazed than Jesus’ contemporaries two millennia ago.

* Jesus teaches unlike any other teacher who has ever come, before or after. His contemporaries said he “taught with authority, unlike the scribes.” The scribes, the ancient Biblical scholars, always used to cite Sacred Scripture or Jewish tradition, to base their teachings on the authority of the word of God. That was obviously an appropriate way for them to teach, sharing their interpretations of God’s word rather than merely their own opinions. But Jesus didn’t need to cite the word of God, because he is the word of God. In the Sermon on the Mount, for example, he contrasted himself to what Moses, their greatest teacher about the ways of God up until then, had said to them on behalf of God in the desert: “You have heard that it was said — in other words, Moses said to you — ‘you shall not kill…’ ‘you shall not commit adultery… ,’ ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth…,’ but I say to you,  you shall not even be angry with a brother, or look on a woman with lust in your heart, or if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn and offer him the other as well” (Mt 5:20-45). Jesus was capable of saying, “But I say to you,” in contrast to what the greatest Biblical figure until then had said.

* Authority comes from the Latin word auctorfor “author,” and Jesus spoke with authority because he is the author, the creator, of man, woman and the world. To capture just a little of what it must have been like to listen to Jesus talk about God, about the world, about man, and about faith and about morality, it would be better than listening to the Wright Brothers talk about airplanes, Henry Ford talk about cars, Thomas Edison describe electricity, Steve Jobs talk about computers, iPads and iPhones, all of whom could speak with stunning authority because they were the “authors,” the inventors, of what we now take for granted. That’s just a glimpse of what it would have been like to be in that Capernaum Synagogue listening to Jesus, who is the author of the world, the one through whom we and all things were made.

* Even if we can’t go back in a time machine to the ...

Fr. Roger J. LandrySacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, ManhattanFriday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time, Year IMass in Thanksgiving for the Gift of Human Life

February 1, 2019Heb 10:32-39, Ps 37, Mk 4:26-34

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.29.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

Today Jesus continues to speak to us about the objective good of his Kingdom and how to receive and respond to his gracious offer of it and grow and thrive within it. On Wednesday, he gave us the Parable of the Sower and the Seed and focused on faith-filled receptivity, which he said features hearing the Word, actively accepting it, and bearing fruit 30, 60 and 100-fold. Yesterday he said that true faith can’t be hidden, but shines like the light of a lamp placed on a lamp stand, and that the more we exercise the spiritual muscle of the theological virtue of faith, the more it will grow. Today he gives us a pair of images to teach us two more angles about the increase in faith that is meant to happen when we enter and live in his kingdom.

Jesus says, first, that faith grows like a mustard seed. “When it is sown in the ground,” Jesus says, “it is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth. But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.” Even a little bit of faith is enough, Jesus would say elsewhere, to move mountains. Even when it seems small, we should know that it contains within the power to grow to be enormous. And by another image he describes one of the most important parts of that growth: it’s God’s work. Jesus compares the growth in faith to what happens with a farmer scattering seed in the Holy Land, turning it over once, and then allowing the growth. “It is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.” The farmer certainly does a little of the work, but most of the work happens by what is contained in the seed, what is contained in the soil, and the water that comes. So it is with growth in faith. God has given us that seed, he’ll provide the water of the sacraments, he’ll provide the sunshine of various blessings, and he’ll give so many of the nutrients like teaching and formation necessary for us to be rich, fruitful soil. And so we should have great confidence in God’s work.

One way God routinely acts to help that seed of faith grow large is through putting us in tests in which we need to exercise the spiritual muscles of faith. Every time we pass the test of faith under duress, our faith grows. We see this in today’s first reading from the Letter to the Hebrews. It describes how the faith of the first Christians grew. The sacred author tells us, “Remember the days past when, after you had been enlightened (baptized), you endured a great contest of suffering. At times you were publicly exposed to abuse and affliction; at other times you associated yourselves with those so treated. You even joined in the sufferings of those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, knowing that you had a better and lasting possession.” The last sentence points to how they were able to remain faithful in the midst of so many trials and “great contests,” including the confiscation of their goods and even the confiscation of their earthly life. They knew that they had a “better and lasting possession.”

Pope Benedict,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Thursday of the Third Week of Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church

January 28, 2021

Heb 10:19-25, Ps 24, Mk 4:21-25

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.28.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Yesterday Jesus gave us the Parable of the Sower and the Seed, which allowed us to take a soil sample of our receptivity to his action in our life and to point us toward bearing abundant fruit through eliminating the packed down soil, or subterranean rock layers or thorns that can choke the growth of the seed. He also explained to us why he uses Parables, so that we’ll be provoked to put in the work to understand the imagery he is using and apply it to our life; if we don’t find ourselves doing the work but blowing off what he says, it’s a clear sign that our hearts are hardened.

* Today Jesus continues that lesson by focusing on three things that should happen when we are receiving his word on good soil.

* The first is that it will shine through us. Jesus tells us, “Is a lamp brought in to be placed under a bushel basket or under a bed, and not to be placed on a lampstand? For there is nothing hidden except to be made visible; nothing is secret except to come to light.” Jesus has lit the lamp of our minds and hearts with his holy word and he doesn’t want us to place it under a bushel basket or a bed but on a lamp stand. He doesn’t want us to keep what he teaches us secret but to make it visible, to bring it to the light of day so that others might similarly be illuminated. The word should take on our own flesh and we should become living commentaries of it in the midst of others, who should be able to “see” it in us even before they “hear” the word through us.

* Second, we will take care of it. Jesus tells us to “take care what you hear.” We can understand this in two senses. First, it means to pay attention, that we listen well to what he’s saying. We ought to be at the edge of our seats when Jesus speaks, attentive to every word, remembering it, pondering it in our hearts, placing it together with what he’s taught us before and letting it become a foundation for what he wishes to teach us later in our prayer, in our listening to Sacred Scripture, in what he reveals to us in day-to-day events. The second way he wants us to take care of what we hear is to treasure what he reveals, to nourish it, to water the seeds of his word.

* This leads to the third point: we will share the word of God generously. Jesus tells us that the “measure with which you measure will be measured out to you and still more will be given to you. To the one who has, more will be given; from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” This is basically the law of “use or it or lose it,” which every student, every athlete, every musician knows. The more we learn, the more we can learn. The more we work out, the greater our stamina and strength and the tougher the exercises we can do. The more we practice the piano, the more our talent develops; the less we practice, the more we lose our ability. Unless we use a gift, the gift atrophies. It’s similar with the light of the teaching he gives us: the more we give it, the more we’ll receive it, and if we don’t pass it on to others, we’re at risk for losing it. Any teacher will tell you that if you really want to learn something, try to teach it to others. The measure with which we measure is measured back to us. The way we let the light shine, the way we take care of the word, is to measure it out, so that we may not only grow in our possession of the lig...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Wednesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of St. Angela Merici

January 27, 2021

Heb 10:11-18, Ps 110, Mk 4:1-20

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.27.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Three days ago the Church celebrated Sunday of the Word of God. Today Jesus gives us one of his most important parables about how we are to receive the gift of that word and what to expect when we seek to share that word with others. He calls the word a seed, he describes how he, and later his followers, sow that word, and then he talks about four different types of response to it in four different types of soil. Today is an opportunity for us to take a soil sample of our receptivity to God’s word in our life and more broadly our openness to God’s action.

* Jesus uses not just this parable but every parable to bring into the light the receptivity of those who hear him. When he was asked by those with the apostles why he spoke in parables, he said, quoting the Prophet Isaiah, “The mystery of the Kingdom of God has been granted to you. But to those outside everything comes in parables, so that ‘they may look and see but not perceive, and hear and listen but not understand, in order that they may not be converted and be forgiven.’” Jesus uses parables because it exposes whether those listening are hungry to grow in truth. The parables require some work to understand them and especially to understand their application by analogy to the things of the life of faith. There are some — we could say, some with the first three types of soil Jesus will say later in the Parable — who won’t really put in the work to grasp them. They’ll look and see but not perceive, hear and listen but not understand precisely because they don’t think they really need the truth of the parable at all or enough to justify the effort. They don’t really think they need conversion, need saving, and need that word. It’s only those with good soil, who hunger for the truth, who will put in the effort to decipher the meaning of the parable and live by it. They’re the ones who will struggle, together with God’s grace, to hear and listen in order to understand, to see and perceive.

* To understand the meaning of the parable, we first need to grasp how farming was done in Jesus’ day. Farm plots were long and thin and there were paths between them on which the farmers and all pedestrians would walk. Sowers would just scatter seed everywhere and it would land in various places. Then the farmers would go and try to turn over the soil — rather than turning over the soil and then planting, as we do today.

* Jesus describes four types of earth that the seed of his Word and work falls upon. The first is soil along the path. Over time, the dirt would be packed down, the seed couldn’t penetrate it, and the birds would come and eat the seeds that had fallen upon it. This refers to those with stubborn soil, who are not receptive to God’s word, either because they’re inveterate sinners or because they think they already know what they need to know. Jesus says, “As soon as they hear, Satan comes at once and takes away the word sown in them.”

* The second type of soil is “rocky ground,” where there is “little soil.” These refer to those who are superficial. In the Holy Land, many areas have a thick layer of limestone a few inches beneath the surface. It keeps most the water within those three inches and so at first a seed will sprout up immediately, but because of the limestone, the roots can’t go very deep and when the not Middle Eastern sun arises,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Tuesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of SS. Timothy and Titus

January 26, 2021

2 Tim 1:1-8, Ps 96, Mk 3:31-36

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.26.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Two days ago we celebrated Sunday of the Word of God dedicated to helping us grow in our love for, knowledge of and living of what God has revealed. In today’s Gospel, Jesus reveals to us that he has come to found a family and his family — as shown so eminently in the life of his mother whose whole life can be summarized by her fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum — are distinguished by doing the will of God that he reveals. This isn’t about sometime of cold, extrinsic obedience to arbitrary commands, but a loving, faithful adhesion to God and with trust and affection seeking to do what pleases him. It’s not a clash of wills but a concordance, in which we want to accomplish what God wants, knowing that what he wants and commands is out of love for us.

* We had a chance, yesterday, to ponder St. Paul’s doing the will of God. He sought to do it, erroneously, prior to his conversion, when out of zeal for God’s law he was persecuting Jesus in his Mystical Body, the Church. After the Lord met him outside the gates of Damascus, he asked, “What do you want me to do, Lord?,” and then not only did what Jesus asked, but spent the rest of his life preaching and exemplifying the loving, trusting obedience of faith. SS. Timothy and Titus, whom we celebrate today, were those who learned from St. Paul this lesson and in turn sought to proclaim and model this faithful fulfillment of God’s word and will and thereby build up the family of God. St. Paul praises St. Timothy for having been acquainted with the Scriptures since childhood (2 Tim 1:5) and he stresses with him in his letter to have greater confidence still. “Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed, because you know from whom you learned it and that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction and for training in righteousness so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:14-16). When in today’s passage St. Paul urges him to “stir into a flame the gift of God” Timothy had received, a key part of that gift was love for God and his holy word. We are all called to have our love for knowing God’s word and doing it grow into a bonfire.

* Likewise St. Paul communicated that same holy desire to do God’s will to his collaborator St. Titus. In the passage the Church proposes today as an alternate first reading, St. Paul described how God “at the proper time revealed his word in the proclamation with which I was entrusted.” He heard the Word of God, meditated upon it and had an inner woe until he shared it as of the first importance with others. He knew that Titus, too, had been entrusted with the proclamation of that word and throughout his letter he urged Titus to “say what is consistent with sound doctrine (Tit 2:1), saying that the way that he would be able to exhort in that way would be by “holding fast to the true message as taught” (Tit 1:9).

* As we, like Paul, Timothy and Titus, seek to “proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations,” to “sing to the Lord a new song,” to “bless his name,” to “announce his salvation day after day,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

January 23, 2021

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.23.21_Landry_ConCon.m4a

 

The text that guided the homily is: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy to have a chance to ponder with you the consequential conversation God wants to have with us this Sunday. Last week we examined the type of growth in faith that is meant to happen in the life of every Christian. We did so, we can say, from the subjective perspective, from the experience of St. Andrew and St. John, passing from fascination and curiosity about Jesus, to the trust that characterizes following him as disciples, to the enthusiastic sharing of the faith that marks the apostolate. This Sunday we have a chance to examine the type of growth that is meant to characterize our Christian life from Jesus’ own perspective with the help of Jesus’ words and actions at the beginning of his public ministry. In Jesus’ inaugural 18-word homily (16 words in St. Mark’s Greek) and in his conversations with his first followers after, we see four different elements that are key for our spiritual growth. This is what Jesus had waited his entire hidden life in Nazareth to announce and do. It’s also what he, as God, had been waiting since the Fall to establish: “The time is fulfilled,” he said, “and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent and believe in the Gospel!”

* Jesus announces first two essential facts: The first is, “The time is fulfilled.” Jesus proclaims an urgency. He says that the time of waiting is over. The time to act is now. The second fact is, “The kingdom of God is at hand.” Jesus declares that God’s kingdom is here. God’s presence is erupting, and the time to enter his kingdom, to share in his reign, is now. After the two facts, Jesus turns to four ways we’re supposed to respond to this reality. These are the four conditions for entering and living in his kingdom. These are the four ways we won’t waste the time God has given us but make the most of it. The first is “Repent.” The second is “Believe.” The third is “Follow.” And the fourth is “Fish.” Let’s examine each of these realities and ask ourselves whether we’ve heeded Jesus message

* The first is “repent.” In Greek, this word ismetanoete, which etymologically means a total revolution of our mind, of the way we look at things. It’s a call to conversion, to no longer think as everyone else thinks, to no longer do as everyone else does, but to put on the mind of God, to align our heart and our actions to him. It means to compare ourselves to God rather than to everyone else and to recognize we’re not yet living enough as the image and likeness of God. For some people this will mean a 180-degree turn. For others it might mean a 50-degree turn or a 10-degree turn. But all of us need this conversion and we will always need it. The Christian life is one of continual conversion, in which we literally learn how fully to “turn with” Jesus (con-vert) in all parts of our life. As he turns in prayer to the Father, we turn with him; as he turns with charity to our neighbor, we turn with him; as he turns with mercy to a family member who has sinned against him and against us, we, too turn with mercy. This call to continual metanoia means that we’re incessantly seeking to change for the better to become more and more like the Lord who calls us to that penance and renewal.

* The second word is “believe.” To believe means not just to accept somethingas true. To believe means totally to submit oneself to a reality on the basis of a trust in the one testifying to the reality. To believe means to entrust ourselves completely to Jes...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Saturday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of St. Marianne Cope

January 23, 2021

Heb 9:2-3.11-14, Ps 47, Mk 3:20-21

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.23.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today Jesus’ relatives — likely his cousins from the Nazareth area — came to seize him in Capernaum because they said, “He is out of his mind.” They thought he was crazy. After all, according to worldly standards, he certainly seemed to be. He had given up a good job as a carpenter in his hometown to adopt a lifestyle in which he, by his own admission, didn’t even have a place to lay his head. Rather than being respected, he was preaching in a way that got even Pharisees and Herodians — two groups of people who were inimical to each other — to conspire together to kill him, homicidal provocations that Jesus would incite even in his hometown when his neighbors for most of his life would as a mob try to throw him off the cliff on which Nazareth had been built. And he had surrounded himself by a curious group of followers — fishermen, a loathsome tax collector, even a zealot who wanted to kick out the Romans at all costs. He had turned his back on worldly security, on personal safety, on the wisdom of most in society. His cousins thought that they needed to come to rescue him from himself.

* Jesus is clearly crazy according to worldly standards. The world proclaims that to be happy you need to be rich; Jesus says you need to be poor in spirit. The world says you need to be strong and finish fights others begin; Jesus says you need to be meek and a peacemaker. The world says you need to be sexy and sexually active lest you shrivel up and die; Jesus says you need to be pure of heart. The world dictates you need to be the life of the party; Jesus says you need to mourn. The world says you can’t have a care in the world; Jesus says you need to be starving for holiness. The world says you need to be popular, liked and admired; Jesus says you need to be reviled and persecuted. Jesus clearly is crazy. He’ll go on to say that we need to turn the other cheek, to pray for our persecutors, to love even our enemies, to deny ourselves, pick up our Cross each day to Crucifixion, and to follow him. We should be clear that by worldly standards, Christ is crazy. What he asks of us is crazy. And those who follow him are called to be “fools for Christ” (1 Cor 4:10). Real Catholics, according to worldly standards, are part of a world-wide insane asylum. We believe, after all, that here at Mass we consume not bread and wine but God himself under the appearance of bread and wine. We believe that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we can move mountains. We believe that we’re more related to each other by baptism than identical twins are by genes.

* What’s the source of Jesus’ insanity? It’s contained in the Greek expression that is translated “out of his mind.” It means “out of himself,” out of “his wits.” It means that Jesus wasn’t concerned fundamentally with self-preservation. He was concerned fundamentally with his Father’s glory and our salvation. He lived, he thought, he acted for the Father and for others. He lived outside of himself. The Letter to the Hebrews, focusing on Jesus’ high priesthood, makes this point today, saying, “through the eternal [Holy] Spirit he offered himself unblemished to God.” His whole existence was this unblemished self-offering, giving his life to save ours and to please his Father. And that Jesus who lived that way turns to each of us and says, “Follow me!”

* The saints are the ones who have,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Friday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children

January 22, 2021

Heb 8:6-13, Ps 85, Mk 3:13-19

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.22.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today in the Gospel, we see the calling of the twelve apostles and the reason behind it: so that they might “be with” Jesus and so that he might “send them out” with his authority to preach, teach, exorcise, heal and help others enter into his kingdom. On this day on which we mark the horrible 48th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions that permitted the legal killing of children in the womb, and the Church in the US has a Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children, it is an opportunity for each of us to remember and give thanks to God for our vocation to be heralds of the Gospel of Life, to be with Jesus not only in prayer but in special solidarity with him in his image in the womb, and to be sent out by him to help expunge the diabolical practice of the slaughter of innocents in the womb and to help people, especially vulnerable mothers and fathers to choose the path of life and love. Just as Jesus called Simon Peter; James, John, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, Thaddeus, and Simon the Cananean by name to announce his Gospel 2,000 years ago, so the Lord has called each of us by name for the vocation of love in the heart of the world.

* The Letter to the Hebrews cites the Prophet Jeremiah in describing the “new and improved” Covenant that Jesus, the eternal High Priest, would inaugurate. We remember Jeremiah’s call, “The word of the Lord came to me: ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you'” (Jer 1:4-5). So, too, we have been formed in the womb for our Christian vocation, a central part of which is to help everyone learn how to reverence other human beings made in God’s image and likeness similarly being formed, dedicated and appointed in utero to God’s glory through the love of God and others.

* The Letter to the Hebrews quotes God’s words through the Prophet Jeremiah in order to drive home the point of the Covenant Jesus himself would make, one not indicated by a rainbow like Noah, or sealed through circumcision like Abraham, or written on stone like the Decalogue, but sealed in his blood and written on our minds and hearts. This new Covenant would be the means by which we — from the least to the greatest — would “know the Lord.” The reason that this covenant would be “better” would be because in it God through the incarnation would help all of us keep our end of the covenant with him. He would keep it for and with us on behalf of the human race. He would literally enter into us, bringing his “kindness and truth, … justice and peace” to meet within us. He would set up himself, with his law of love, in our interior so that we could align our entire existence to him whispering to us in the inner organ of sensitivity we call the conscience.

* Every Covenant is a covenant of life. St. John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae wrote extensively about how the Covenant is in its core a Covenant of life and love. The Covenant made with Abraham, he said, is a covenant of life in which Abraham’s children would numbered like the starts in the heavens (EV 44). The Decalogue, he added, focuses on “the inviolability of human life reverberates at the heart of the ‘ten words’ ...