Catholic Preaching

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Mass of December 17

December 17, 2020

Is 49:2.8-10, Ps 72, Mt 1:1-17

 

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

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The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today we begin the second phase of Advent dedicated to the proximate preparation for the celebration of the Lord’s birth. In the first phase of Advent, which runs from the first Sunday of Advent through December 16, we focus on the Lord’s “triple-coming” in history (Bethlehem), mystery (the sacraments and prayer), and majesty (on the clouds of heaven for the second coming), with a special accent on the third and, based on it, the second and how we’re called to run out to embrace him in each of these three ways that, transformed by him, we begin to journey with him. Now we shift gears and we will begin traversing the events that happened just before our Savior’s birth.

* To accompany us each day, the Church gives us the ancient “O Antiphons,” called “O” because they all start with a vocative, calling the Lord Jesus by a specific title, and then asking him under that title to do something specific for us so that we may become more like him. These antiphons were already in use in the 700s in Rome but may have their origin a few hundred years earlier than that. In them, we’ll address Jesus in Latin, O Sapientia (O Wisdom), O Adonai (O Lord), O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse), O Clavis David (O Key of David), O Oriens (O Rising Sun), O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations), and finally O Emmanuel (O God-with-us). These Antiphons are prayed by the Church twice a day, originally and principally during Vespers before and after the Magnificat canticle and then  during the Alleluia verse to prepare us for the Gospel at Mass. They influence the way we’re supposed to relate to Jesus as he comes into our world, the way we’re supposed to respond with joy to the reception of God’s word. The beautiful Advent hymn we sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” is based on the O Antiphons, but the translation is a little loose and they’ve changed the traditional order. Regardless, it is a beautiful hymn not just to sing but upon which to meditate during this proximate preparation for Christmas.

* The O Antiphon we have today orients our approach to today’s readings: O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter sauviterque disponens omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae. “O Wisdom, who have come from the mouth of God Most High, guiding all created things strongly and sweetly from end to end: come to teach us the way of prudence.” And Jesus, Wisdom incarnate, responds to that prayer by teaching us the way of wisdom that effuses his genealogy.

* The first reaction of most of us to the Lord’s genealogy is that it concerns anything but wisdom. Pope Francis, whose 84th birthday we mark today, said that when this passage is read, many comment it’s like reading straight out of the telephone book. But there’s something else going on. Just like today we celebrate not only Jorge Mario Bergoglio but also focus on his roots as the first of five children of Mario José Bergoglio and Regina Maria Sivori, so the genealogy of the Lord first shows us history: that the Word of God not only became man and dwelled among us but became “history.” He entered our history. Jews were focused on genealogies and it was highly significant for St. Matthew to show that Jesus was a descendent first of Abraham and then of David. This communicated, respectively, that he was a Jew and he was an appropriate candidate to be the Messiah as a descendant of King David. We can also comment, in this Year of St.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Wednesday of the Third Week of Advent

December 16, 2020

Is 45:6-8.18.21-25, Ps 85, Lk 7:18-23

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.16.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today we come to the end of the first part of Advent. Tomorrow, we begin our proximate preparation for Christmas with the genealogy of Christ. And on this last day of the first part, the Lord summarizes what the real theme has been, about that triple dynamism on which we’ve concentrating: God’s action, our reaction and going out to meet him, and the way that that’s supposed to transform us so that, together with him, we will walk together on the Christian journey into the future.

* This first part of Advent is summarized with a beautiful meteorological image from Isaiah, which has become over the course of time probably one of the most famous of all Advent hymns. Isaiah summarizes for us the type of longing for God we’re supposed to have in his words from today’s first reading that were repeated in our Responsorial Psalm: “Let the clouds rain down the Just One and the earth bring forth the Savior.” Rorate Caeli Desuper et Nubes Pluant Iustum. We turn to God and beg him to rain down his Son, the Just One, whose mission was to help make us just and holy.

* God reminds us through Isaiah today that he didn’t establish the earth for it to be a “waste,” or just to be inhabited, but to be “lived in.” Jesus came to restore that original plan, being born, living, dying and rising so that we might have life and have it to the full. But for this to occur, the rain of God’s grace coming from above must meet good soil thirsty for God. That’s what today’s Psalm is about as we pray, “I will hear what God proclaims… for he proclaims peace to his people. Near indeed is his salvation to those who fear him.” After God the Father rains down the Just One and the earth brings forth the Savior from the womb of the Virgin, we proclaim what’s God’s plans for us: “Justice shall walk before him and salvation along the way of his steps.” In other words, Jesus the Just One will walk before us bidding us to follow him along the path of holiness, and if we journey along those steps he will guide us all the way to eternal salvation. What consoling words these are! What a consoling reality God wants them to become! But the question for us is whether we have that soil that thirst for God to rain down his Son into our lives, whether we’re ready to receive God’s grace and allow salvation to spring up from God’s work within us. That’s why today’s Gospel is so important. The Church puts before us once again the figure of St. John the Baptist so that we might examine honestly whether we have been responding as we should this Advent to God’s holy action.

* John the Baptist sends the men and women who were clinging to him to Jesus with the question, “Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?” He wanted his disciples then — and all of us now — to get off the fence and if we really believe Jesus is the One to act like it. If Jesus really is the one, if he really is the long-awaited Messiah and Son of God, then the logical result is to put Jesus absolutely front and center, first and supreme in our life. If he really is the One, then it’s time for us to follow him all the way, to live in his kingdom, to rejoice in his presence, and to share that great news with others. If Jesus really is that Just One poured down from heaven, then we shouldn’t be looking for anyone or anything else, we shouldn’t be hedging our bets on the way we live, but go all in. Faith, after all,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Monday of the Third Week of Advent

Memorial of St. John of the Cross, Doctor of the Church

December 14, 2020

Num 24:2-7.15-17, Ps 25, Mt 21:23-27

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.14.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* We can’t help but notice a huge contrast today between the first reading and the Gospel. In the Book of Numbers, we see this mysterious figure called Balaam, who was a pagan diviner whom the Moabite King Balac bribed to pronounce a curse over Israel. When Balaam tried to curse Israel on four separate occasions, however, he couldn’t. Instead he pronounced a blessing — and the greatest blessing of all, foretelling the coming of Jesus 1,300 year later: “I see him, though not now; I behold him, though not near: a star shall advance from Jacob and a [shepherd’s] staff shall rise from Israel.” Even though Balaam certainly didn’t start in the right place, he couldn’t help but acknowledge and announce the truth and the light that God revealed to him.

* In the Gospel we see something totally different. The chief priests and elders of the people, who had started with God’s revelation, who had prayed since their youth the words of today’s Psalm, “Teach me your ways, O Lord!,” ended up rejecting God’s ways, spurning Jesus’ fulfillment of all the Old Testament Messianic prophecies as well as the prophetic announcement of John the Baptist. For them, they were no longer interested in the truth. They were not hungry to learn and follow God’s paths. They thought they already had all the answers they needed. They thought that they were firmly on the path. They were interested only in authority, and, frankly, not God’s authority but their own. They asked Jesus, “By whose authority are you doing these things?,” because they knew Jesus didn’t have their authority, and likely, they thought, hadn’t received a mission from anyone else who could give it in categories they would acknowledge. The fact that God had given him authority — or even more, that he was God and was speaking on his own authority — hadn’t even crossed their mind because it was a category they did not want to acknowledge even existed. Jesus knew this and for that reason asked a question not to trip them up but to bring them conversion, seeking to have them acknowledge God’s authority. That’s why he asked, “Where was John’s baptism from? Was it of heavenly or of human origin?” It was designed to open them up to the fact that God, as the Source of all authority, could have sent John. But they didn’t respond with a desire for the truth of things, just with a political calculation: “If we say, ‘Of heavenly origin,’ he will say to us, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we fear the crowd, for they all regard John as a prophet.’ So they said to Jesus in reply, ‘We do not know.’” Even though they supposedly “didn’t know” and didn’t really care to know, they were not agnostic in their approach to Jesus. They did not treat John as a prophet. They didn’t heed John’s message. They didn’t make straight the paths. And they didn’t heed John’s indication of Jesus as the Lamb of God who had come into the world to fulfill all the prophecies of the sacrificial lambs in the temple.

* We see in the Psalm the attitude each of us should have toward God’s word announced to us with God’s authority through St. John the Baptist and announced to us by the Author himself: “Guide me in your truth and teach me!” There’s supposed to be not only an openness but an active, hungry docility. God always wants to respond to that prayer, but we need to be open to how he responds.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Third Sunday of Advent (B)

December 12, 2020

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.12.20_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, when, for the second Sunday in a row, we encounter St. John the Baptist who proclaims to us, “I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, “Make straight the way of the Lord.” The Old Testament priests and Levites from Jerusalem who came to him at the Jordan were trying to figure him out. “Who are you?,” they asked. He wasn’t the Messiah. He wasn’t Elijah come to life again. He wasn’t the Prophet Moses. So they asked him again, “Who are you, so we can give an answer to those who sent us? What do you have to say for yourself?” That’s when he announced he was the forerunner of another, the voice of the one calling all of us to conversion, of the one who was coming after him who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and whose sandal strap he was not worthy to untie. Church tradition has always referred to John the Baptist as the precursor of the Lord, because as his father Zechariah said at his birth, he would “go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give his people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins.”

* In the ancient world, before Twitter and Facebook, before text messages and the internet, before televisions and radios, before newspapers and posters, how would people be informed that a dignitary was coming to their town? Heralds would be sent out to alert everyone, to call them to attention, so that the one who is coming might be expected, desired and welcomed, so that they could repair the roads and the bridges or make new ones, so that they could clean everything up, and so that the people may notice and greet the one who was coming when he arrived. This is the service that John the Baptist fulfilled for the Lord’s coming 2000 years ago and the Church has him do for us still.

* As Catholics, however, we’re called not merely to receive and be grateful for the work of the Lord’s forerunner, but we’re also called to become precursors in our own right. Jesus constantly has need of heralds to announce his presence and coming. And all of us, by our baptism and strengthened by our confirmation, have been consecrated to carry out this role. Jesus went to John and sanctified him from the beginning in the womb of his mother Elizabeth, because he would later be his indomitable herald. The same Lord has chosen us, has redeemed and sanctified us, at the beginning of our lives in the womb of our mother, the Church, (which is the baptismal font), so that we might be his witnesses in the world, so that we might smooth out his paths and prepare others for his coming. We are called, as John the Baptist said in today’s Gospel, to be a voice for Christ, to announce to others, “‘In your midst there is one whom you do not know,’ one for whom you are searching, who can make you happy, one who will never deceive you, the only one who has the words of eternal life.”

* The renewal that is meant to take place in us each Advent begins with our receiving John the Baptist’s call and making straight the paths for Christ to come to us, but it doesn’t stop there. The fruit is for us to echo John the Baptist’s call and help others likewise to prepare the way for the Lord. This is the greatest gift we could give to anyone at Christmas.

* We’re now living in a world in which so many of the baptized are living day-to-day and even on Sunday’s as if God doesn’t exist,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

December 12, 2020

Rev 11:19.12:1-6.10, Judith 13:18-19, Lk 1:39-47

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.12.20_Visitation_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in this homily: 

* “How does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” This question asked by St. Elizabeth in the Visitation ought to be asked by each of us today on this great feast of the Patroness of America, Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mary identified herself to St. Juan Diego in Tepeyac as the “Mother of God” and then later as our “Merciful Mother” and she came there as a woman on a mission. A specific type of mission. She’s pregnant with Jesus seeking to bring him to others. In the Gospel, we see what she does as soon as she became pregnant by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit: she went with haste to care for her cousin Elizabeth, forming her embryonic son to be the itinerant missionary he would become before he even had developed the tiniest of feet. And when she arrived in Ein Karim, Jesus blessed his in utero cousin John the Baptist in the womb, preparing him for his own mission as the precursor of the Messiah. Likewise in the first reading from the Book of Revelation, we see Mary pregnant once again, this time with the Church — we know it’s the Church because she “wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth,” something that didn’t happen in Bethlehem, but certainly happened on Calvary as Jesus announced to her that she was to be the mother of the human race — seeking to help bring to birth in all of God’s children the image and likeness of her Son Jesus. Mary seeks to do for us what Jesus entrusted her to do as he was dying on the Cross: to help bring her Son to birth in us. When Mary appeared to St. Juan Diego 489 years ago, when she imprinted her image in his tilma, she did so as a pregnant Aztec princess, a symbol that she was about to give birth to her son here in our continent, in our hemisphere. Christianity had arrived in Mexico just a short ten years before but there were relatively few converts because most of the indigenous people were turned off by the conquistadors rather than turned on by the Franciscan missionaries to the Lord both groups claimed to believe in. But after her appearance and seeing the image of this mestiza woman — which was an harmoniously beautiful mix between Indian and Spanish features, showing the compatibility of the Gospel being announced by the Spanish Franciscans and the Indian nature — there started to be converts by the millions. Ten million came to the faith in just the next decade.

* The mission Our Lady of Guadalupe gave to St. Juan Diego shows us how Mary sought to give birth to her Son in his hemisphere. It wasn’t merely bringing people to baptism and the sacraments. It was incorporating them into her Son’s saving mission. It was helping them to continue her own work of bringing Christ to birth in others. When she identified herself to St. Juan Diego, she said, “Am I not here who am your Mother?” She identified herself as his merciful Mother and told him she wanted a place built where she could “hear [her sons’ and daughters’] weeping, their complaints and heal all their sorrows, hardships and sufferings.” In this kairos of Mercy in which we’re living in the Church and the world, Mary wants to show herself to be our merciful Mother, to hear our sorrows, hardships and sufferings, and to help us to become like Juan Diego’s, facilitating her doing that for so many others. St. Juan Diego’s vocation story shows us all how each of us, no matter how unworthy we think we are, are asked to cooperate in this missionary work of C...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Friday of the Second Week of Advent

Memorial of Pope St. Damasus

December 11, 2020

Is 48, Ps 1, Mt 11:16-19

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.11.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* As we have been pondering, Advent involves a triple dynamism: the Lord comes, we go out to meet him with lighted lamps, and then, transformed by the encounter with the Bridegroom, we continue to journey with him and finish together with him his mission.

* When we go out to meet him, it’s not just to shake his hand but to have him shake us up and transform us. In the Gospel today, Jesus says that many of us don’t encounter him with that conversion in mind. He describes his generation — and frankly every generation — like children in marketplaces “sitting” — in other words, not wanting to move. They’re playing different music and want everyone to respond to that music: if they play the flute, they want people to dance; if they play a dirge, they want people to mourn. The key is that they want to set the terms of the interaction. They want the others to move and change. That’s what Jesus was saying they were doing with both of the figures that the Jewish people had been awaiting, “Elijah” and the “Messiah,” the precursor and the Anointed One, ultimately God’s messenger and God himself. They criticized John the Baptist for his ascetical fasting; and when Jesus wasn’t fasting because he was showing us how to rejoice because the Bridegroom was with us, they criticized him for drawing close in mercy to the hedonists like the tax collectors and other sinners, who were enjoying the things of this world in a disordered way. They failed to grasp that it’s we who should be dancing to the Lord’s music and not the other way around. They were classifying-and-conquering not only the principle figure of preparation for the Messiah’s Advent, St. John the Baptist, but the Messiah himself.

* I also think it’s significant that Jesus describes them as sitting in the “marketplace.” The marketplace is where we go to buy things according to our preferences. Today this is an issue because in the marketplace we learn a type of “consumerism” that can then come to impact our faith. We like things to happen according to our pleasures and preferences: we like certain Mass times and not others, certain liturgical forms, certain music or none, certain popes, bishops or priests, certain Psalm tones, certain Eucharistic prayers, certain lengths of homily, certain messages, certain styles. This consumerism can cause us to behave much like the children in the marketplace, trying to play the music for our relationship with the Lord. We play soft, sentimental hits and want the Lord just to touch our emotions. We’ll play marches and want the Lord to ship others around us into shape and boss them around like a drill sergeant. We’ll play horror movie music to try to “scare the hell” out of people. We’ll play heavy metal and drown out the Lord’s whisper. We won’t play any music at all, because we’re in a bad mood, or hate music, or can’t sing, or anything else. The point is that we need to attune ourselves to what the Lord is playing.

* In the first reading, God tells us through Isaiah, “I, the Lord, your God, teach you what is for your good, and lead you on the way you should go.” We need to allow him to teach and guide us, rather than our seeking to teach him how the world, our life and the lives of those around us should run. We need to follow him rather than, like Peter when Jesus called him “Satan,” try to lead him. We prayed in the Psalm,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Thursday of the Second Week of Advent

Memorial of Our Lady of Loreto

December 10, 2020

Is 41:13-20, Ps 145, Mt 11:11-15

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.10.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* On Sunday, St. Peter told us in his Second Letter, “The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard “delay,” but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” We normally regard Advent as a season of patience, of hope-filled waiting and longing in which we enter into the long wait of the Jews for the Messiah and use it as a model to increase our appreciation for the Messiah’s coming and birth in Nazareth, for his coming to us in various ways in the present, and especially for his Second Coming. But St. Peter focuses on the Lord’s own wait: he delays not because he’s procrastinating or arbitrarily postponing the coming of his Son but because he’s waiting for us to convert, lest any of us perish without repentance. That theme is picked up in the Psalm today when we praise him for being “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness.” He is gracious, acting first without our meriting it; merciful, constantly opening his heart to forgive and care for us; slow to anger and therefore patient, giving us multiple chances, helping us to do better, waiting for us to repent; and of great kindness, so much kindness that he will do whatever it takes for us to become like him, by sending his Son, and by giving us means by which to convert, even if to our human categories it might not seem “nice.” He wants to help us likewise to become gracious with others, going out of our way to help them without their necessarily deserving it; merciful, giving them 70×7 chances, praying to the Father for them for they know not what they do; slow to anger and patient, especially with those who try our patience; and kind and good to the point that we will be willing to do even fraternal correction with them. In order to help us to become more and more like God, Jesus talks about two realities in the Gospel we must confront: the greatness of our divine filiation and the “violence” that it will take to live up to it within the gracious, kind, patient, mercy of God.

* To understand both points we need to delve into the Gospel. The Jews were waiting in the long Advent for two figures. The obvious one was the Messiah. The other was actually the one they were expecting first, Elijah, whom God had said through the Prophet Malachi, “Behold, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes” (Mal 4:5; Mal 3:1). Jesus in today’s Gospel identified the work of Elijah with St. John the Baptist, telling us, “If you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah, the one who is to come.” Later in St. Matthew’s Gospel, after Elijah appeared with Moses speaking to Jesus during the Transfiguration, Jesus was even more explicit: “Elijah will indeed come and restore all things, but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him but did to him whatever they pleased. So also will the Son of Man suffer at their hands” (Mt 17:12), pointing out how they had manhandled his precursor. “Elijah” pointed out the “Messiah” and the “Messiah” was pointing out “Elijah.”  The fulfillment of the Advent for the one who would come in the person of Elijah was an indication of the even greater fulfillment.

* Because of John the Baptist’s role in pointing out the Messiah, however, not to mention because of his personal holiness and witness to the p...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Wednesday of the Second Week of Advent

Memorial of St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin

41st Anniversary of the Death of the Venerable Fulton J. Sheen

December 9, 2020

Is 40:25-31, Ps 103, Mt 11:28-30

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.9.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in this homily: 

* As we have been discussing, in Advent there is a triple dynamism: Christ comes to us in history, mystery and majesty; we run out to embrace him; and then, having encountered him, we go out united with him to complete the work he wants to do in us and through us for the salvation for the world. We ponder this triple reality in today’s readings. As Jesus is coming to us, he says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest.” Jesus calls us in the midst of our work, he calls us in the context of all our struggles and difficulties, to come to him to find the rest our bodies and souls need. But the rest Jesus offers is not what normally we would anticipate. For most of us we would anticipate that rest would mean a vacation from our labors or the elimination or a respite from our burdens. Jesus offers something else. It’s a yoke: “Take my yoke upon you,” he says, “and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.” The yoke Jesus offers is something that will harness us to him, so that, just as a yoke binds two oxen to work together, we will do everything together with him. That yoke is his Cross, which is not so much a sign of pain but of the love that makes even the pain of crucifixion somehow bearable. To be united with the Lord who comes and calls us to come to him is to be united to that love that makes even the yoke of the Cross easy-fitting and light — and whatever burdens and labors we carry to the yoke easier and lighter.

* Jesus calls us to yoke ourselves to him in such a way that we will learn meekness and humility directly from him. God’s great strength is not exercised in the way the strong of the world often flex their muscles. We see the way Jesus himself exercises his strength in the Gospel. Meekness is not weakness. The Greek word for “meek” means the self-discipline and power of a martial arts expert or tremendously agile athlete, or of a well-trained, docile horse, capable of action and reaction at a simple bump. Real strength is not shown in pummeling any and all adversaries, but often in resisting doing so even though one could. That’s why St. Paul will say that Christ crucified is the power and the wisdom of God. Yoking ourselves to Jesus allows us to learn this meekness from him, so that in the midst of our labors and burdens we’re not beaten down but, like a black belt in the martial arts, use what is thrown at us to help us achieve what we want to rather than to obstruct that goal. When we are yoked to Jesus, our sufferings and work help purify us and help sanctify the world. Likewise yoked to Jesus we learn how to grow in humility through offering our work and burdens for the service of others. The Season of Advent helps us to focus on humility as we prepare for Christmas and the unbelievable humility that God showed not only in taking on our human nature, but taking on great poverty, being born in a borrowed cave, placed in an animal trough, wrapped in swaddling clothes rather than regal garments, eventually working himself as a carpenter, and experiencing the normal burdens of life. In all of these humbling circumstances, Jesus was carrying out his work of salvation, which is something each of us can and ought to learn from him, because we, too,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady

December 8, 2020

Gn 3:9-15.20, Ps 98, Eph 1:3-6.11-12, Lk 1:26-38

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.8.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

* Today we commemorate the beginning of the life of our spiritual mother. Today we celebrate how the Almighty has done great things to her and lifted up the humble. Today we rejoice in the true beginning of our Redemption, when God, through the merits of his and her Son from 47 years later on the Cross, preserved her “preveniently” from all stain of original sin from the first moment of her life. Today we celebrate God the Father’s Advent, the beginning of the proximate preparation for the Son of God to come into the world. Today we celebrate the triumph of grace over sin and evil and how we’re called to share in, and share with others, that triumph.

* And we do so today in a special way. The same Pope Blessed Pius IX — who in response to the petitions of Catholics throughout the world and in line with the deposit of faith — had solemnly declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception on this day in 1854, on this day exactly 150 years ago in 1870 declared Saint Joseph the patron of the universal Church. He chose to make this proclamation on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, because St. Joseph was intimately espoused and connected to this Mystery, through his chaste loving union with the one who described herself to Saint Bernadette as “I am the Immaculate Conception.” If we wish to relate to Mary under this title and reality, there’s no better model as to how to do so than St. Joseph.

* St. Joseph shows us how to love Mary with tender affection and commitment. She is our “Mother Most Amiable” and Joseph saw that amiability up close and personal. He helps us to learn to love her as a fellow disciple of the Lord, as a spouse of the Holy Spirit, as a Mother of God and of all believers (including Joseph himself!), and as a powerful intercessor.

* St. Joseph shows us how to protect Mary’s dignity and honor. If God had other, seemingly greater, plans for his betrothed than Joseph felt worthy to assume, he was willing to divorce her quietly so that she could follow God unhindered and not be subject to the brutality of the Mosaic law. He put her first. He likewise protected her and Jesus from Herod and his henchmen. His whole life was dedicated to defending her honor before men. Like Joseph, like Jesus, we, too, are called to have a holy zeal for protecting and promoting her dignity and honor.

* St. Joseph was absolutely committed to helping Mary live out her vocation before God. Mary’s vocation as Immaculate Conception, as Daughter of Zion, as Mother of God, as Queen of All Saints, very much remains. Saint Joseph assisted her to grow as a faithful Jew, as a fervent disciple, as a physical and spiritual mother, as an intercessor. He allowed her to imitate her Son’s self-giving love, by permitting her to love him in accordance with her vocation as a virginal spouse and Mother of God. St. Joseph shows us how to help Mary live out her vocation as Queen of Heaven and Earth for whom to reign is to serve. He shows us how to receive Mary’s unmerited maternal love.

* St. Joseph shared Mary’s commitment to Jesus,as they centered their whole lives on him and helped him to fulfill his Messianic mission. St. Joseph helps us to join Mary in centering our existence on Jesus, too, and to share in his redemptive work.

* St. Joseph is the echo of Mary’s fiat as servant of the Lord.Mary said her “Let it be done to me” in response to the Archangel Gab...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Monday of the Second Week of Advent

Memorial of St. Ambrose, Bishop and Doctor

December 7, 2020

Is 35:1-10, Ps 85, Lk 5:17-26

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.7.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily:

* Throughout the first week of Advent, we’ve been speaking of the triple dynamism of Christ’s coming to us, our going to meet him, and, having been transformed by the encounter, traveling with him forward. Yesterday, St. John the Baptist reminded us of our need to prepare the way for this encounter and make straight the paths. On Saturday, Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah who will feed us, quench our thirst and teach us will speak to us from behind and say, “This is the path. Walk in it!” Today the Prophet Isaiah tells us that this path Jesus will come into our world to indicate is a special one: it’s a highway called “the holy way.” And Isaiah says that this way of sanctity has several characteristics:

* First,  “no one unclean may pass over it.” It’s not only for those who desire holiness, but those who have been cleansed. God’s mercy, in other words, precedes our repentance, our making straight the paths.

* Second, it’s “for those with a journey to make.” It’s not for the inert who desire to remain exactly where they are, who don’t want to change, who don’t want to move.

* Third, it’s an exodus route on which “the redeemed will walk.” Even when we’re redeemed that is not the end of the journey, but in a sense the beginning. Once we’ve been redeemed, now we can begin that journey. “Salvation,” as we prayed in the Psalm, is “along the way of his steps.”

* But this journey along the highway of holiness is something that sometimes we don’t have the strength to journey on our own. Jesus said elsewhere in the Gospel that the road that leads to life is narrow and few find it but the way that leads to perdition is broad and there are many on it. The highway to hell, in other words, is congested and the eternal express has little traffic. Many of us need the help not only of God but of others to get on the path of holiness. We can think of those who first taught us the faith, those who nourished us in faith, those who continue to pray for us, and guide us, and inspire us, correct us with love, and set the example for us. We can think about those people who really helped us when we couldn’t move, when we were neck-deep in uncleanness. We can think about those who are constantly picking us up as we fall and helping us anew. And we can think about the way as Catholics we’re called to assist others to come to God’s mercy, to gain the strength for the journey, and to walk with us on the pilgrimage of the redeemed.

* Today’s Gospel is about that. We see how the friends of the paralyzed man perseveringly and faithfully overcame every obstacle to bring their friend to Jesus. When they couldn’t get him in through the front door, they did what was very difficult — keep him balanced on his stretcher as they lifted him up on the roof and then lowered him right on top of Jesus. In the case of the paralyzed man, he needed more than to fill in valleys and level mountains. He needed friends to help him overcome the obstacle of too many people in the way and to climb roofs. But he got that help. And when Jesus saw him, he helped him with the first condition: he made him clean, saying to him, on account of the true friends’ faith, “Your sins are forgiven.” To show in the face of criticism he had that power and that desire to make us all clean, he cured him of his paralysis and sent him on a journey: “Rise, pick up your stretcher,