Catholic Preaching

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Wednesday of the 33rd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of St. Rose Philippine Duchesne

November 18, 2020

Rev 4:1-11, Ps 150, Lk 19:11-28

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.18.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today in the Gospel we have the Parable of the Coins (on Minas), which is similar to that of the Talents we heard on Sunday, but the main difference is in this Parable, everyone gets the same investment on the part of the Lord. One servant multiplies the gold coin by 10, another by 5, seven we don’t know about, and the tenth buries it. Whereas with the Parable of the Talents, we can often focus on how many talents we have relative to others “each according to his ability,” today’s Parable has us focus on the fact that the greatest gifts we’ve received, we have to a large degree received equally with others: the gift of our life, the gift of time, the gift of redemption, the gift of God’s word, the gift of the Sacraments, the gift of so many opportunities for charity. How are we investing those? Are we bearing great dividends from them? How are we planning to invest the gift of this day for loving God and others? We all know that there are some people who really profit from these common gifts and others who place them in handkerchiefs. Most of us would give the Lord somewhere between numbers 1 and 10. But the Lord wants to teach us how to bear great dividends.

* Before we move on, let’s first handle a couple of things for the setting of the Parable. The first is about life in general. Jesus told the people the Parable “because he was near Jerusalem and they thought that the Kingdom of God would appear there immediately.” The Parable of the Coins was given to help people know why the Kingdom of God wasn’t going to appear immediately, or, rather, how the Kingdom among them, as it awaits fulfillment, is a place in which people are advancing or growing the kingdom by investing the King’s gifts. How important this point is for us to grasp: that time is a time of investing for the kingdom. The second introductory point involves the setting of the story, which involves history known very well to Jesus’ listeners but not to people today. Jesus was taking advantage of the well-known story of how after King Herod’s death, his kingdom was divided into three parts, but each needed to go to Rome to be confirmed by the emperor in the kingship. The king of Judah, Herod Archelaus, went to Rome but the people sent a delegation saying that they didn’t want him as king. The emperor confirmed him without the title king — he named him tetrarch — and upon the return, Archelaus executed those who didn’t want him to be king. In this month of November, in which we meditate on death and judgment, there’s a spiritual equivalent for those who don’t want to accept God as King. He doesn’t punish or slay them because in a sense he doesn’t have to: they’re already spiritually dead. Hell is not merciless but merciful, for as CS Lewis once said, there are only two types of people, those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, “Thy will be done.” Hell is for those who want definitive self-separation, and choose it continually through their choices; those are the ones who won’t be in the kingdom.

* Let’s get into the heart of the Parable and what Jesus is teaching. Jesus gives each of the ten servants a treasure of a gold coin. The coin is actually a mina, which is one-sixtieth of a Talent. Since a talent was 6,000 days wages, a Mina is 100 days wages or a third of a year’s salary. For someone making $30,000 a year about $10,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Tuesday of the 33rd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

November 17, 2020

Rev 3:1-6.14-22; Ps 15, Lk 19:1-10

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.17.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today in the readings, we are able to focus on the heart of Jesus’ interactions with us, the meaning of the incarnation, of his public ministry, of his passion, death, resurrection and beyond.  It can be summed up by two phrases at the end of the Gospel and first reading respectively: “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost” and “I stand at the door and knock.” Those words of Jesus at the end of his interaction with Zacchaeus and the crowds and after his address to the Seven Churches of the Asian diaspora help us to grasp God’s great desire to save us in his mercy. He knocks, he invites, wants to sit us on his throne and share with us the victory of his triumph over sin and death. Let’s enter into these readings and learn the lessons God wants us to capture.

* The Lord’s merciful desire to save was on full display in the Gospel with Zacchaeus. His love for sinners was so profound that he literally went to the deepest place on earth in search of perhaps the greatest public sinner of that city, to reconcile him to the Father. Jesus went to Jericho, the lowest city on the planet — 853 feet below sea level — to find Zacchaeus, who was not just one of a bunch of tax-collectors loathsome to the Jewish authorities, but the chief tax collector of the region, which was the equivalent of the don of the mafia. He conspired with the Romans to rip off his own fellow Jews through the crooked Roman tax system. Jesus had promised that he, the Good Shepherd, would leave the ninety-nine sheep in his fold to search out and save one lost sheep, and this is what he did, leaving the crowds behind and entering alone with Zacchaeus into his home and into his life. He called Zacchaeus, his lost sheep, by name and heaven rejoiced on that day more for him than for all the others. So, too, today and everyday, Jesus takes the initiative of knocking at the door of our souls, asking for entry, coming to us wherever we are, no matter the depths to which we’ve sunk, no matter the fact that perhaps everyone else around us might despise us. Jesus never abandons us. To the extent that we repent of whatever sins we’ve committed and accept Jesus’ gracious invitation by “welcoming him with delight,” we, too, like Zacchaeus, can have salvation come to us.

* The diminutive Zacchaeus’ climbing of the tree, moreover, is more than merely an interesting detail. The text tells us that he was trying to see Jesus, but couldn’t because of the crowd, so he ran ahead and climbed a tree along Jesus’ route in order to be able to see him. We, too, often cannot see the Lord because other people get in the way. They block our sight in various ways. We’re often too small of stature to see over such obstacles, and, unfortunately, too often others are too selfish, distracted, sinful, judgmental or out-of-it, to do anything to help us and bring us into the presence of the Lord. Like a little child, however, Zacchaeus climbs a tree to see the Lord. Such an act could have led to great mockery for a middle-aged public figure. But Zacchaeus didn’t care. He wanted to see the Lord and no obstacle was going to stop him. His example challenges each of us to consider the extent to which we go, the trees or obstacles we’ll climb, in order to see Jesus more clearly. In our prayer, we regularly “leave the ground,” separating ourselves from the crowds, to go to Jesus, to behold him,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Monday of the 33rd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Votive Mass for the Faithful Departed

November 16, 2020

Rev 1:1-4.2:1-5, Ps 1, Lk 18:35-43

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.16.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in today’s homily: 

* On Saturday Jesus gave us the parable of the importune woman bothering the unjust judge in order to convey to us the necessity of “praying always without losing heart.” Immediately thereafter is the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican — which the Church doesn’t give us to ponder today because we meditate upon it at other times during the year — which shows us of the importance of humbly begging the Lord for mercy. Today we encounter the living illustration of what Jesus was teaching about persevering, faithful, humble prayer for mercy in the blind man by the side of the road whom St. Mark in his version of the same scene identifies as Bartimaeus.

* As rabbis were accustomed to do on the three-times-per-year pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the major feasts, Jesus was teaching the crowds along the journey. Bartimaeus was sitting by the roadside begging. He heard the commotion of the crowd and asked what was happening. Upon hearing that “Jesus of Nazareth was passing by,” he immediately began to cry out, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” He had doubtless heard of Jesus’ reputation for working miracles in Galilee to the north and was responding in faith. The fact that he called him “Son of David” was a sign he believed Jesus was the Messiah. But his cries for Jesus were annoying those who were trying to hear Jesus’ teaching. So the first people in the group rebuked him and told him to shut his trap. But that only led him to cry out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me!” The word St. Luke uses means basically an animal cry, something coming deep from his woundedness.

* Jesus stopped and ordered that Bartimaeus be brought to him. For Jesus, caring for this man was more important than whatever else he was teaching at that moment. Likely, it was also a “coincidental” opportunity for him put flesh on his parables by showing how God responds to persistent, faithful, humble prayer for compassion. Jesus asked Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?,” and Bartimaeus said, “Lord, please let me see!” To some degree, Bartimaeus was already seeing by faith but he wanted to see Jesus with physical eyes so that he would be able to do exactly what he did once cured, to “follow him, giving glory to God.” He saw something with inner eyes, but was asking to see more. Jesus replied, “Have sight; your faith has saved you.”

* This cry of Bartimaeus is one of the most beautiful and frequent Christian aspirations: Domine, ut videam!, “Lord, I want to see.” It’s a beautiful response to Jesus’ perennial question to us in prayer, “What do you want me to do for you?” If Jesus were to ask many of us that question, many might waste his attention on lesser things, asking for him to return us to the shape we were in at 21, or to resolve a particular issue, or other relatively small stuff. Every day, however, we should ask the Lord for the gift to see, for the grace to see what we don’t see, to see things as they really are, the way he sees them. We should beseech the grace to see him and to see ourselves aright. We should ask for the grace to recognize him in the Holy Eucharist, in Confession, in prayer, in others, in the various events of the day, and especially in the beatific vision. He won’t allow us to see everything, because then we wouldn’t have the grace to live by faith, believing in things unseen,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. Agnes Church, Manhattan

Resumed Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

November 15, 2020

1 Thess 1:2-10, Mt 13:31-35

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.15.20_EF_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

Today many Catholics are anxious and fearful about the present and the future. The uncertainty about the recent election and about what changes might happen after January 20th, particularly with regard to the practice of our faith, the direction of the culture have filled many with worry. We see the global situation in which madmen invade a Catholic Church and kill three at daily Mass in Nice, Christian children are beheaded by the dozens in Mozambique by those identifying with ISIS, Catholic schools and parishes are attacked in northern Nigeria, the difficult circumstances in which Christians are living in Cuba or China or various other countries, the flight of Christians from the Holy Land, Iraq and Syria and more, and wonder what the future holds. The publication of the McCarrick report by the Vatican this week showed us in detail the former Cardinal’s decades of evil and corruption and how it wasn’t stopped by those in positions who could have and should have done so much more to protect young people, seminarians and the whole Church; it also raises questions about whether there’s been sufficient repentance to prevent recurrences to root the priesthood and episcopacy from people who would gave the system the way McCarrick did and of sufficient reforms to make sure men like him are never ordained. Many also note with concern the skyrocketing numbers of Covid-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths, concerned about the condition of our loved ones, neighbors, fellow parishioners, the first responders, even ourselves. We are anxious about whether State or local decisions about the pandemic will make it difficult or impossible for us to receive the Sacraments like we had to endure in the Spring. And we are troubled by what that will mean for the Church, conscious that only a third of people have returned to the sacraments after the Churches were reopened.

In the midst of all of these situations, Jesus speaks about the Kingdom of God in today’s Gospel in a way that should fill us with hope. Jesus’ listeners felt themselves a very small minority surrounded by hostile forces. The Scribes, Pharisees and Herodians were already conspiring to kill Jesus. They saw the power of the Roman army, the hostility of the religious leaders, the rejection of those in the cities to whom they had gone to preach who met them with hardened soil by the wayside. They knew their human limitations and were likely tempted on many occasions to question whether what they were doing was a hopeless enterprise. Jesus in today’s Gospel was reminding them that even though the kingdom may seem powerless and tiny, it’s not.

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

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

November 15, 2020

Prov 31:10-13.19-20.30-31, Ps 128, 1 Thess 5:1-6, Mt 25:14-30

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.15.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

Every November, the Church has us focus our attention on the four last things — death, judgment, heaven and hell — so that we might be always prepared for the first two, enter into the third and avoid the fourth. This Sunday is no exception. In the second reading, St. Paul tells us, as he told the Christians in Thessalonika, that “the day of the Lord” — the day of our death or of the end of the world, whichever comes first  — “will come like a thief in the night … as labor pains upon a pregnant woman.” An expectant mother never knows for sure when contractions will start. Many women —like the worthy wives praised by the Book of Proverbs in today’s first reading — prepare a bag of necessary items for the hospital in mid-pregnancy in case the contractions come prematurely so that they’re ready to go to the hospital at a moment’s notice. St. Paul says we need to prepare in the same way for the contractions of death that lead us from the womb of this world to the next dimension of life. Death can come when we least expect it. It could come for some or all of us as fast as today. This reality scares some people, because they doubt they’ll be ready, much like students who don’t study regularly fear flunking a pop quiz. But St. Paul calls the Thessalonians and us not to be afraid by telling us what we need to do. “You, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness for that day to overtake you like a thief,” he tells us. We know it’s coming. Therefore he reminds and exhorts us, “You are all children of light and children of the day… So let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober.” He tells us always to have what we need ready, so that we might go with joy to the Father’s house. The question for us is: What do we need to do to be ready, what do we have to have in our “go bag” so as not to be caught off-guard when the labor pains for eternal life commence?

In the Gospel, Jesus answers that question and tells us what we need to have in that travel sack. He gives us a parable about how we are to be judged and how we are to prepare for it. But in doing so, as he often does, Jesus tells us as well so much about who we are in God’s eyes, where we fit into His plans, and how we should live. The entire history of the world and the vocation of each of us is found in this short story.

It’s called the Parable of the Talents. A rich man going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them, each according to his capacity: to one he gave five talents, another two, and the third one. On the Master’s return, the one who had received five gave him ten back; the one who received two likewise doubled it and gave him four back; but the one who had received one buried the talent and just gave him back the one at the end.

In our egalitarian culture, we can get lost in the numbers five, two, and one, and think that they’re more important than they are. The main point is that gives to “each according to his ability,” he knows what we can handle, and he’ll judge us not according to quantity but according to what we’ve done with that ability in relation to what’s been given. Some of us can likewise get a lost by the number “one” as if someone would not have been able to do much with so little, or as if the “one” were just one valuable coin that we might easily lose if we tried to invest it. We have to remember, however,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

November 14, 2020

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.14.20_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The text that guided the homily was: 

* Every November, the Church has us focus our attention on the four last things — death, judgment, heaven and hell — so that we might be always prepared for the first two, enter into the third and avoid the fourth. This Sunday is no exception. In the second reading, St. Paul tells us, as he told the Christians in Thessalonika, that “the day of the Lord” — the day of our death or the end of the world, whichever comes first  — “will come like a thief in the night … as labor pains upon a pregnant woman.” An expectant mother never knows for sure when contractions will start. Many women —like the worthy wives praised by the Book of Proverbs in today’s first reading — prepare a bag of necessary items for the hospital in mid-pregnancy in case the contractions come prematurely so that they’re ready to go to the hospital on a minute’s notice. St. Paul says we need to prepare in the same way for the contractions of death that lead us from the womb to the next dimension of life on this earth. Death can come when we least expect it. It could come for some or all of us as fast as today. This reality scares some people, because they know that won’t be ready, much like students who don’t study regularly fear flunking a pop quiz. But St. Paul calls the Thessalonians and us not to be afraid by telling us what we need to do. “You, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness for that day to overtake you like a thief.” We know it’s coming. Therefore he reminds and exhorts us, “You are all children of light and children of the day… So let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober.” He tells us always to have what we need ready, so that we might go with joy to the Father’s house. The question for us is: What do we need to do to be ready, what do we have to have in our “go bag” so as not to be caught off-guard when the labor pains for eternal life begin?

* In the Gospel, Jesus answers that question and tells us what we need to have in that travel sack. He gives us a parable about how we are to be judged and how we are to prepare for it. But in doing so, as he often does, Jesus tells us as well so much about who we are in God’s eyes, where we fit into His plans, and how we should live. The entire history of the world and the vocation of each of us is found in this short story.

* It’s called the Parable of the Talents. A rich man going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them, each according to his ability: to one he gave five talents, another two, and the third one. On the Master’s return, the one who had received five gave him ten back; the one who received two likewise doubled it and gave him four back; but the one who had received one buried the talent and just gave him back the one at the end.

* In our egalitarian culture, we can get lost in the numbers and think that they’re more important than they are. Jesus gives to “each according to his ability” and he’ll judge us not according to quantity but according to what we’ve done with that ability in relation to what’s been given. Some of us can get a lost by the number “one” as if someone would not have been able to do much with so little, or as if the “one” were just one coin that we might easily lose if we tried to invest it. We have to remember, however, that by the word “talent” Jesus was referring to a measurement of weight. One talent of silver was equal to 6,000 days wages or about 20 years of work for someone working six days...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Saturday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

November 14, 2020

3 Jn 5-8, Ps 112, Lk 18:1-8

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.14.20_Homily_715_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today Jesus asks us what I think is perhaps the most haunting question in Sacred Scripture: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” It’s not a rhetorical question. He was asking it because the answer wasn’t obvious. He had a serious concern as to whether when he comes for each of us or for all of us, whichever comes first, he would find us truly faithful. He’s been giving us over the past couple of weeks lots of encouragement to be found vigilant upon his arrival, like that faithful and prudent steward giving his goods to others at the proper time. Today we can ponder two ways that he hopes to find us faithful.

* The first is through persevering prayer. Jesus gives us a parable about the “necessity” — not just the invitation! — for us to “pray always without becoming weary.” Prayer is faith in action. Jesus describes a widow, someone who was helpless without a husband or a son to plead her case before a corrupt judge, who continued to seek a just decision against an adversary. It would appear that the judge may have been bought off by that adversary. The judge, who feared neither what God or what others thought of him, was unwilling but the woman didn’t stop. Eventually, however, he relented, saying, “Because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.” Jesus tells us, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says,” before adding, “Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.” Jesus wasn’t comparing God to a corrupt magistrate but contrasting him. If even an unjust judge would eventually give in, how much more will a Father who loves his children respond to them when they “pray always without losing heart?”

* Pope Francis pondered the reality of this persevering prayer in a homily in 2013. The first thing he said is that we need to be willing to pray in such an enduring way as to “bother God.” He said, “Jesus himself, when he taught his disciples how to pray, told them to pray like … the widow with the corrupt judge. To do so — I would say — by being bothersome. … Praying is a little like bothering God so that he listens to us. …  This is how Jesus teaches us to pray. … Jesus tell us: …  ‘Knock at the door!’ and whoever knocks at the door makes noise, he disturbs, he bothers.” In another 2013 homily he took up the very important question as to why Jesus would want us to persevere in prayer, asking over and over again, if God already knows what we need. He said, “Why does God want this? Doesn’t he already know what we need?  … God invites us to pray insistently not because he is unaware of our needs or because he is not listening to us. On the contrary, he is always listening and he knows everything about us lovingly. On our daily journey, especially in times of difficulty, in the battle against the evil that is outside and within us, the Lord is not far away, he is by our side. We battle with him beside us, and our weapon is prayer, which makes us feel his presence beside us, his mercy and also his help. But the battle against evil is a long and hard one; it requires patience and endurance, like Moses who had to keep his arms outstretched for the people to prevail (cf Ex 17:8-13). This is how it is: there is a battle to be waged each day,

Fr. Roger J. LandrySacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, ManhattanFriday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time, Year IIMemorial of St. Francis Xavier CabriniNovember 13, 20202 John 4-9, Ps 119, Lk 17:26-37

 

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

The following points were attempted in today’s homily: 

Yesterday the Church throughout the world pondered Jesus’ words that the kingdom of God is among us and why that is, because the King is here with us, he took on our flesh, he remains with us in the Sacraments, in grace, in the Church, in others; and we enter into that kingdom when we follow up our prayer “thy kingdom come!” with the complementary couplet “thy will be done!” We dwell within that kingdom when we’re with the King, when allow his will to be done within us, when he reigns. Today’s readings and memorials provide a fitting commentary on these truths.

In today’s Gospel, we see that even though Christ the King is present, some live in that kingdom and others don’t; others behave as if they are vincibly oblivious to it. Jesus contrasts Noah with those who perished in the flood, and Lot and those who perished in Sodom. Some were attentive and alert to God’s kingdom in their midst and some were not. Jesus encourages us to be similarly on guard. He says that when he comes we shouldn’t head down into the house to get our possessions or come in from the field; rather we should go straight to the King whose kingdom we should be seeking in action. He says that two will be sleeping, two will be cooking, but only one will be taken. This isn’t to be misinterpreted as if God’s going to do an arbitrary 50/50 split. Rather, it’s saying some in the very same circumstances will be ready because they’re connecting sleeping or cooking to God and his kingdom, and others won’t be ready, because all they think they’re doing is sleeping or cooking. When they ask where this will take place, Jesus uses an aphorism, “Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather,” to indicate that just as vultures find a corpse, so we should find the kingdom! He also gives the principle of living in the kingdom: “Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it.” Those who are living in the kingdom are giving their life for God and others, so that his kingdom will come and his will be done. Those who try to preserve their own kingdom, to hallow their own name, to do their own will, will be those who lose their lives.

In today’s first reading, the only passage we have in the two year liturgical cycle of daily Mass readings from St. John’s Second Letter, the Apostle — who was present when Jesus said the words in today’s Gospel — makes plain what living in the kingdom is all about. He phrases it as “walking in the truth just as we were commanded by the Father,” following in the footsteps of the Incarnate Truth. He describes that involves not a new commandment but the one to “love one another” that Christ gave us, reminding us that to love is to “walk according to the commandments” because the commandments train us to love God with all our mind, heart, soul and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. He notes that there are “progressives” who do not “remain in the teaching of the Christ.” They do not remain, he says, in the Father and the Son and in the kingdom of God. Parallel to the upshot of Jesus’ message in today’s Gospel, he encourages them to lose their lives so as to save them: “Look to yourselves that you do not lose what we worked for but may receive a full recompense.”

Someone who showed us how to live fully in the kingdom, to walk in the truth, and to love others, is the spiritual giant the Church celebrates today, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, who lived and worked for part of her life here in New York and is buried here in New York. She was born in 1850 near the Italian city of Lodi.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Thursday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of St. Josaphat, Martyr

November 12, 2020

Plhm 7-20, Ps 146, Lk 17:20-25

 

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

[coming…]

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* The Pharisees in today’s Gospel asked Jesus when the Kingdom of God would come. They were doubtless asking this within messianic expectations, that the kingdom of God would erupt soon and fulfill Jewish hopes to evict the Romans from Israel and reestablish the Davidic throne. The kingdom, for them, was fundamentally a political reality, a Davidic theocracy. In the question, the Pharisees were probably egging Jesus on to see whether he thought he was the Messiah and what his future plans might be. But Jesus, as he is wont to do, transcended the question. He said that the inauguration of the Kingdom wouldn’t be a spectacle to be observed. There wouldn’t be trumpets intoning “Hail to the King!” There wouldn’t be heralds indicating that the kingdom is “here” or “there.” Rather, Jesus says, “Behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.” This means two things. First, that the Kingdom had already come because the King was present; the Kingdom is where the King is and Jesus was already present. Second, the Kingdom had already come because people had already embraced it, entered it and were living in it because they were living with the King. The “among” here in Greek can also mean “within,” and some people interiorly were already very much in the Kingdom. There’s a couplet in the Our Father in which we pray first “Thy kingdom come!” and then repeat it in other words, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The Kingdom of God is wherever God’s will is done, whenever one begins to live in relationship with God and his kingdom.

* By both of these applications Jesus was indicating that no one needed to wait to observe the kingdom because the kingdom had already arrived. Rather, they needed to know how to look for it. Throughout the Gospel Jesus was giving us indications about how to recognize the kingdom as well as the conditions for entering it and living in it. He says that the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are “poor in spirit,” to those who treasure God more than all the treasures of the world. It belongs to those who convert and become like little children, who trust in God and accept it as a gift. It is like a wedding banquet full of joy and those who live in the kingdom are those who are profoundly and serenely joyful. It grows like a mustard seed or yeast, imperceptible to people on the outside but the growth is real. It’s like a buried treasure or a pearl of great price, a net cast into the sea or a field with wheat and weeds. By each of these realities Jesus was indicating qualities of the Kingdom so that we would be able to perceive it. Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, said very powerfully back in 2000 in a talk to catechists from around the world, “The kingdom of God … is ‘not a thing.’ The Kingdom of God is God. The Kingdom of God means: God exists. God is alive. God is present and acts in the world, in our – in my life. God is not a faraway ‘ultimate cause,’ God is not the ‘great architect’ of deism, who created the machine of the world and is no longer part of it – on the contrary: God is the most present and decisive reality in each and every act of my life, in each and every moment of history.” The kingdom has come to a person when God is truly God of each and every act of one’s life. The Kingdom of God is living within the matrix of the incarnate King of Kings.

* When we enter into that kingdom, everything changes and all other kingdoms are rel...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Wednesday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

November 11, 2020

Ti 3:1-7, Ps 23, Lk 17:11-19

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.11.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* “In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess 5:18), we sang as we prepared for today’s Gospel. Our Christian vocation is one of continuous thanksgiving in all circumstances. We have a beautiful dialogue in the heart of every Mass when the priest says, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God,” the people reply, “It is right and just” and the priest adds, “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father.” We pray those words on Easter Sunday but also throughout Lent, we pray them and nuptial Masses as well as funerals, we pray them in the midst of prosperity and persecution. It is right and just always and everywhere, in all circumstances, to praise and thank God. To do so is first a religious duty, out of gratitude to God for all that he has given us and done for us. But it’s also the path to our salvation. We see the salvific importance of thanksgiving in today’s Gospel.

* Jesus today heals ten lepers. To have leprosy in the ancient world was about the worst thing that could befall you. Not only would Hansen’s disease eat away your flesh and bones, not only would it lead to about the most sickening smell imaginable, but it would lead to your total banishment from society. You had to live apart from civilization. You were cut off from your family. You were cut off from simple things like being able to go to the market for groceries or to the well for water. In some sense you were cut off from God because you couldn’t go to the synagogue on Saturdays or the Temple for major feasts. People couldn’t approach closer than 50 feet from you and when you were near anyone you needed to ring a bell and cry out “Unclean! Unclean!” One of the toughest things of being a leper was that the only people with whom you could relate were other lepers, with all the psychological, physical and spiritual problems that lepers bore.

* When Jesus approached, the lepers with diaphragms trained from yelling out “Unclean! Unclean!,” stood at a distance from Jesus, raised their voice, and begged, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” Very few people had genuine mercy on them. They just tried to stay as far away from them as possible, as if the leprosy were somehow the lepers’ fault. Jesus did have mercy. He responded, “Go, show yourselves to the priests,” because priests were the only ones under the Mosaic law who were able, intelligently, to pronounce a leper healed and to return him or her to society. Even to say this was to imply that he had cured them, but he actually didn’t pronounce them cured. It took an act of faith on their part to start journeying to find a priest simply on Jesus’ word. But that’s what they did. As they were journeying, however, St. Luke tells us one of them, a Samaritan, realizing he had been healed, turned around. Before he would show himself to the priests, he wanted to thank the one who had given him a miracle. Glorifying God, he came to Jesus, fell at his feet, and poured out his heart in gratitude. Jesus’ words are very powerful: “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine?” He knew he had cured all ten of leprosy, but only one was showing gratitude. Jesus then drew attention to the fact that the man who returned was a Samaritan, someone for whom the Jews had centuries of animosity as those who did not worship God aright.