Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Feast of St. Mary Magdalene

July 22, 2020

Songs 3:1-4, Ps 63, Jn 20:1-2.11-18

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today we celebrate one of the greatest saints who has ever lived, the woman who, after the Blessed Virgin, is mentioned most in the Gospels: St. Mary Magdalene. And we celebrate her in a special way, as a liturgical feast, decreed so by the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments four years ago, at the express will of Pope Francis. In the Decree of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, it gave three reasons for this liturgical upgrade: St. Mary Magdalene is a witness of the transforming power of Divine Mercy, a model of the indispensable service and dignity of women in the Church, and an epitome of evangelization. These three focuses are very helpful because St. Mary Magdalene’s reputation has suffered from a lot of confusion over the course of time. It suffered first from the crazy writings of the gnostic pseudo-gospels in the centuries after Christ, silliness historically debunked but recently resuscitated by Dan Brown and neo-gnostics, all positing Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ girlfriend or wife. The second is from being confused and conflated by St. Gregory the Great and some others with two other women in the Gospels: the anonymous sinful woman who washes Jesus’ feet in Simon the Pharisees’ house as a sign of repentance and plea for mercy; and Mary of Bethany who sits at his feet and later anoints them with precious nard in the home she shared with her siblings Martha and Lazarus. St. Mary Magdalene’s life, however, is so rich on its own without fantasy or conflation. Today we can ponder the three points from the Decree that we know for certain and what that means for our living our Christian life well.

* First, she experienced Christ’s compassion and mercy. St. Luke and St. Mark tell us that she had had seven demons cast out from her. She had in some way been under the hold of the devil. Some saints throughout the centuries said that these seven demons may have been the seven deadly sins. Regardless of what their manifestation was, she had experienced the healing power of the Lord. In order to relate appropriately to the Lord, we, too, need to relate to him in his saving mercy. Prior to the papacy, Pope Francis in the Book length interview El Jesuita said that it’s only great sinners forgiven by the Lord who have the experience of who they really are and how much they’re love. Mary Magdalene had that grace. She knew she had been saved and healed. And that’s an experience all of us should begin with if we’re going to imitate the saint we fête today.

* Second, St. Mary Magdalene shows us the dignity of women in God’s plan of salvation, caring for the Lord and the Church, sharing in his mission, hearing his teaching, seeing his deeds. St. Luke tells us that, after having received Christ’s mercy, she was one of several women “who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities” who faithfully accompanied Jesus and the apostles during his journeys and “provided for them out of their resources” (Lk 8:2-3). This was not a group of bored do-gooders who figured that these wandering 13 men would be lost without their spiritual and practical maternity. No, each of them had received from Jesus a physical healing, a spiritual healing, or both, and in gratitude wanted to give Jesus and his mission all the love, time and material support they could. And St. Mary Magdalene particularly excelled in this care, even when others failed. The evangelists all tell us that when almost all of Jesus’ disciples abandoned him, St. Mary Magdalene was faithful with him to the end,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Feast of St. Mary Magdalene

July 22, 2020

Songs 3:1-4, Ps 63, Jn 20:1-2.11-18

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today we celebrate one of the greatest saints who has ever lived, the woman who, after the Blessed Virgin, is mentioned most in the Gospels: St. Mary Magdalene. And we celebrate her in a special way, as a liturgical feast, decreed so by the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments four years ago, at the express will of Pope Francis. In the Decree of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, it gave three reasons for this liturgical upgrade: St. Mary Magdalene is a witness of the transforming power of Divine Mercy, a model of the indispensable service and dignity of women in the Church, and an epitome of evangelization. These three focuses are very helpful because St. Mary Magdalene’s reputation has suffered from a lot of confusion over the course of time. It suffered first from the crazy writings of the gnostic pseudo-gospels in the centuries after Christ, silliness historically debunked but recently resuscitated by Dan Brown and neo-gnostics, all positing Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ girlfriend or wife. The second is from being confused and conflated by St. Gregory the Great and some others with two other women in the Gospels: the anonymous sinful woman who washes Jesus’ feet in Simon the Pharisees’ house as a sign of repentance and plea for mercy; and Mary of Bethany who sits at his feet and later anoints them with precious nard in the home she shared with her siblings Martha and Lazarus. St. Mary Magdalene’s life, however, is so rich on its own without fantasy or conflation. Today we can ponder the three points from the Decree that we know for certain and what that means for our living our Christian life well.

* First, she experienced Christ’s compassion and mercy. St. Luke and St. Mark tell us that she had had seven demons cast out from her. She had in some way been under the hold of the devil. Some saints throughout the centuries said that these seven demons may have been the seven deadly sins. Regardless of what their manifestation was, she had experienced the healing power of the Lord. In order to relate appropriately to the Lord, we, too, need to relate to him in his saving mercy. Prior to the papacy, Pope Francis in the Book length interview El Jesuita said that it’s only great sinners forgiven by the Lord who have the experience of who they really are and how much they’re love. Mary Magdalene had that grace. She knew she had been saved and healed. And that’s an experience all of us should begin with if we’re going to imitate the saint we fête today.

* Second, St. Mary Magdalene shows us the dignity of women in God’s plan of salvation, caring for the Lord and the Church, sharing in his mission, hearing his teaching, seeing his deeds. St. Luke tells us that, after having received Christ’s mercy, she was one of several women “who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities” who faithfully accompanied Jesus and the apostles during his journeys and “provided for them out of their resources” (Lk 8:2-3). This was not a group of bored do-gooders who figured that these wandering 13 men would be lost without their spiritual and practical maternity. No, each of them had received from Jesus a physical healing, a spiritual healing, or both, and in gratitude wanted to give Jesus and his mission all the love, time and material support they could. And St. Mary Magdalene particularly excelled in this care, even when others failed. The evangelists all tell us that when almost all of Jesus’ disciples abandoned him, St. Mary Magdalene was faithful with him to the end,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Tuesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of St. Lawrence of Brindisi, Doctor

July 21, 2020

Mic 7:14-15.18-20, Ps 85, Mt 12:46-50

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in today’s homily: 

* In the Liturgy of the Word today, we finish both the Twelfth Chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel as well as our biennial three-day focus on the Book of the Prophet Micah. By each of them God is seeking to provoke in us a conversion based on getting right what the Scribes and the Pharisees in the Gospel, and the people of Judah in Micah’s time, got wrong. The whole twelfth chapter of Matthew has focused on Jesus’ confrontation with the Scribes and Pharisees over whether his disciples were doing what is unlawful on the sabbath by picking, winnowing, threshing and eating heads of grain, whether Jesus himself was violating it by curing a man with a withered hand in the Synagogue on a sabbath, or whether he was exorcizing a blind, mute possessed man by the power of God or the power of Beelzebul the prince of demons. Jesus’ whole approach was summarized in last Friday’s Gospel, which is, “If you knew what this meant, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice….'” The Scribes and Pharisees, for all their religious practice, had forgotten that religion is supposed to make us like the one we worship, that it’s supposed to help us grow in the image and likeness of God. It’s supposed to make us merciful like God the Father is merciful. It’s supposed to make us like Jesus the Suffering Servant, whom God the Father has chosen, loves and in whom he delights, who with the power of the Holy Spirit will proclaim justice not by contention or crying out, not by breaking bruised reeds or quenching smoldering wicks, but through meekness and humility. It’s supposed to make us good trees that bear good fruit “out of a store of goodness.” Yesterday as you recall Jesus, when asked by the Scribes and Pharisees for a sign, told them that no sign would be given except the sign of Jonah, which is a sign of conversion leading us to die and rise with him, entering into the mercy of what he did when he spent three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, and seeking to follow him who is greater than Jonah, greater than Solomon, and greater than the Temple.

* That brings us to today’s Gospel, which is the exclamation point on the whole chapter. When people tell him that Jesus’ mother and his relatives (the Hebrew and Aramaic words for brother was used for all relatives) were outside hoping to speak to him, he used it to stress who his family members really are. His words were revolutionary for the Jews, who prided themselves, and based so much of their theological understanding on their biological connection to Abraham. Jesus was saying that they needed rather to imitate Abraham’s obedient faith to live as members of God’s family. Stretching out his hands toward his disciples, Jesus said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister and mother.” This was not denigrating his mother in the least, because she was one whose whole life was summarized by her words to Gabriel, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word.” She was the one whom Jesus implicitly praised when a woman from the crowd blessed the womb that bore him and the breasts that nursed him, and he replied, “Blessed, rather, are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” And at the end of this chapter in which Jesus and the disciples were suffering on account of mercy shown on the Sabbath,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Tuesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of St. Lawrence of Brindisi, Doctor

July 21, 2020

Mic 7:14-15.18-20, Ps 85, Mt 12:46-50

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in today’s homily: 

* In the Liturgy of the Word today, we finish both the Twelfth Chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel as well as our biennial three-day focus on the Book of the Prophet Micah. By each of them God is seeking to provoke in us a conversion based on getting right what the Scribes and the Pharisees in the Gospel, and the people of Judah in Micah’s time, got wrong. The whole twelfth chapter of Matthew has focused on Jesus’ confrontation with the Scribes and Pharisees over whether his disciples were doing what is unlawful on the sabbath by picking, winnowing, threshing and eating heads of grain, whether Jesus himself was violating it by curing a man with a withered hand in the Synagogue on a sabbath, or whether he was exorcizing a blind, mute possessed man by the power of God or the power of Beelzebul the prince of demons. Jesus’ whole approach was summarized in last Friday’s Gospel, which is, “If you knew what this meant, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice….'” The Scribes and Pharisees, for all their religious practice, had forgotten that religion is supposed to make us like the one we worship, that it’s supposed to help us grow in the image and likeness of God. It’s supposed to make us merciful like God the Father is merciful. It’s supposed to make us like Jesus the Suffering Servant, whom God the Father has chosen, loves and in whom he delights, who with the power of the Holy Spirit will proclaim justice not by contention or crying out, not by breaking bruised reeds or quenching smoldering wicks, but through meekness and humility. It’s supposed to make us good trees that bear good fruit “out of a store of goodness.” Yesterday as you recall Jesus, when asked by the Scribes and Pharisees for a sign, told them that no sign would be given except the sign of Jonah, which is a sign of conversion leading us to die and rise with him, entering into the mercy of what he did when he spent three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, and seeking to follow him who is greater than Jonah, greater than Solomon, and greater than the Temple.

* That brings us to today’s Gospel, which is the exclamation point on the whole chapter. When people tell him that Jesus’ mother and his relatives (the Hebrew and Aramaic words for brother was used for all relatives) were outside hoping to speak to him, he used it to stress who his family members really are. His words were revolutionary for the Jews, who prided themselves, and based so much of their theological understanding on their biological connection to Abraham. Jesus was saying that they needed rather to imitate Abraham’s obedient faith to live as members of God’s family. Stretching out his hands toward his disciples, Jesus said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister and mother.” This was not denigrating his mother in the least, because she was one whose whole life was summarized by her words to Gabriel, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word.” She was the one whom Jesus implicitly praised when a woman from the crowd blessed the womb that bore him and the breasts that nursed him, and he replied, “Blessed, rather, are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” And at the end of this chapter in which Jesus and the disciples were suffering on account of mercy shown on the Sabbath,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

July 20, 2020

Mic 6:1-4.6-8, Ps 50, Mt 12:38-42

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* In the Gospel, the Scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus for a “sign.” A sign was a miracle that pointed to something else, namely Jesus’ authority to preach and do what he was saying and doing. We know that Jesus had been doing nothing but miracles: he had immediately before cured a man with a withered hand and cured another who was blind, mute and possessed. But the Scribes and Pharisees didn’t want to accept what those miracles signified and the authority of Jesus’ words and deeds to which they testified. So they kept asking for other ones. Perhaps they were waiting until a supposed miracle attempt failed so that they would be able to feel justified in their rejection of Jesus. Jesus cut to the core of why they were asking for such a miracle, saying, an “evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign.” A good and faithful generation would have already taken seriously all of the miracles and words that Jesus had done and grasped that he himself was the sign for which the Jews should have been looking.

* But Jesus nevertheless says that the one sign that would be given to the evil and perverse generation that constantly seeks another sign is the Sign of Jonah. On the one hand this certainly points to his death, burial in the belly of the earth, and resurrection on the third day, the greatest of all his miracles. That sign would be given to all, but, as we know, some would refuse to believe it. The fundamental sign of Jonah, however, is a sign of conversion. Jonah was himself a convert — he had run away from the mission the Lord had given him, much as many of the Scribes and Pharisees were running away from the mission the Lord had given all the Jews in preparing for and receiving the long-awaited Messiah — and called the pagan Ninevites to conversion. And we remember how the Ninevites responded: they all repented, from the king down to the pets, and fasted in sackcloth and ashes. Jesus told them that he was greater than Jonah and a greater sign of conversion. If the pagans of Nineveh had changed their ways at the preaching of Jonah on the first day, then the supposedly “good and faithful” religious Jews of his day should have much more readily changed when they heard Jesus preaching “Repent and believe in the Gospel” and working all the signs to back up his message. Jesus added that the Queen of Sheba had traveled a great distance with many caravans in her retinue in order to hear Solomon’s wisdom — she had in fact traveled 1660 miles or, at a pace of 15 miles a day, over 110 days or nearly four months each way — but that his wisdom was greater than Solomon’s and they weren’t willing to travel any intellectual or moral distance.

* The chief problem with the Scribes and Pharisees is not that they didn’t want to convert “in general.” It’s not that they didn’t really consider themselves sinners in need of mercy. They marked Yom Kippur each year and piously recognized their need for atonement just like everyone else, but they wanted to convert on their own terms and in their own way. They didn’t want to convert in the way God wanted and to begin to do what he was asking. We see that problem laid out starkly in the reading from the Prophet Micah and in the Responsorial Psalm. God through Micah puts words on their lips about the type of repentance they were willing to do and were already doing: “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow before God most high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with myriad streams of oil?

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

July 20, 2020

Mic 6:1-4.6-8, Ps 50, Mt 12:38-42

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* In the Gospel, the Scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus for a “sign.” A sign was a miracle that pointed to something else, namely Jesus’ authority to preach and do what he was saying and doing. We know that Jesus had been doing nothing but miracles: he had immediately before cured a man with a withered hand and cured another who was blind, mute and possessed. But the Scribes and Pharisees didn’t want to accept what those miracles signified and the authority of Jesus’ words and deeds to which they testified. So they kept asking for other ones. Perhaps they were waiting until a supposed miracle attempt failed so that they would be able to feel justified in their rejection of Jesus. Jesus cut to the core of why they were asking for such a miracle, saying, an “evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign.” A good and faithful generation would have already taken seriously all of the miracles and words that Jesus had done and grasped that he himself was the sign for which the Jews should have been looking.

* But Jesus nevertheless says that the one sign that would be given to the evil and perverse generation that constantly seeks another sign is the Sign of Jonah. On the one hand this certainly points to his death, burial in the belly of the earth, and resurrection on the third day, the greatest of all his miracles. That sign would be given to all, but, as we know, some would refuse to believe it. The fundamental sign of Jonah, however, is a sign of conversion. Jonah was himself a convert — he had run away from the mission the Lord had given him, much as many of the Scribes and Pharisees were running away from the mission the Lord had given all the Jews in preparing for and receiving the long-awaited Messiah — and called the pagan Ninevites to conversion. And we remember how the Ninevites responded: they all repented, from the king down to the pets, and fasted in sackcloth and ashes. Jesus told them that he was greater than Jonah and a greater sign of conversion. If the pagans of Nineveh had changed their ways at the preaching of Jonah on the first day, then the supposedly “good and faithful” religious Jews of his day should have much more readily changed when they heard Jesus preaching “Repent and believe in the Gospel” and working all the signs to back up his message. Jesus added that the Queen of Sheba had traveled a great distance with many caravans in her retinue in order to hear Solomon’s wisdom — she had in fact traveled 1660 miles or, at a pace of 15 miles a day, over 110 days or nearly four months each way — but that his wisdom was greater than Solomon’s and they weren’t willing to travel any intellectual or moral distance.

* The chief problem with the Scribes and Pharisees is not that they didn’t want to convert “in general.” It’s not that they didn’t really consider themselves sinners in need of mercy. They marked Yom Kippur each year and piously recognized their need for atonement just like everyone else, but they wanted to convert on their own terms and in their own way. They didn’t want to convert in the way God wanted and to begin to do what he was asking. We see that problem laid out starkly in the reading from the Prophet Micah and in the Responsorial Psalm. God through Micah puts words on their lips about the type of repentance they were willing to do and were already doing: “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow before God most high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with myriad streams of oil?

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Holy Family Parish, Manhattan

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

July 19, 2020

Wis 12:13.16-19, Ps 86, Rom 8:26-27, Mt 13:24-43

 

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

 

The following text guided today’s homily:

* Last week, Jesus gave us the parable of the Sower, Seed and Soil, to indicate to us how he wants us to receive his Word and his work within us. We know from our basic knowledge of farming what normally occurs once a seed has been implanted in good soil. It starts to grow and eventually produces fruit and those fruit likewise contain within many seeds that can then be planted elsewhere. Spiritually the same thing is supposed to happen. With a hat trick of different images in this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus describes that transition from a fertile disciple to a fruitful apostle in which we begin to share what we ourselves have received. His words contain three very important lessons about how the kingdom of God grows. Insofar as each of us has been called and chosen by God through the Church to enter into and expand his kingdom, these three parables are deeply relevant to who we are and what God calls us to do. In one parable, Jesus tells us first that the Church, like a mustard seed, starts small but will grow to be huge. In a second, he adds that the members of the Church are meant to function in the world like yeast does in bread; we’re supposed to make everything rise. In the third, he states that the Church’s growth doesn’t happen in a vacuum: there is also “an enemy” in the field, sowing weeds, to try to wreck God’s harvest — in other words to destroy you, me and those we know and love. The three go together and are meant to guide us at every moment of the Church’s life. Let’s look at them together.

* The first parable is that the Church begins like a tiny mustard seed. From the small seed of Christ implanted by God in Mary’s womb, to the calling of just a few disciples and apostles filled with the Holy Spirit, the Church was born and grew, grew into the largest of shrubs, in which countless people throughout the ages, including whole nations, have been able to come and find shelter in her branches. That tree continues to live we’re branches on Jesus the vine (Jn 15:5). The branches of the Church extend in areas of great sunshine and of great darkness, with all of us taking our roots in that one event, that one piece of soil on Calvary, that one seed of Jesus who fell to the ground three times and died, but rose again, like a plant in springtime, giving life to all of us throughout time. This lesson of the mustard seed recurs throughout Church history. So many religious orders and apostolates that the Lord has raised up to help the Church began small, often with one saint, but over the course of sufferings and patience, they grew to be enormous. So many parishes began with just a handful of poor, committed families, but over the course of years and decades, with sacrifices, time and the help the Lord, grew to be quite large.

* Sometimes we can ask ourselves, though, whether what Jesus said about the mustard seed has an expiration date. It seems that many religious orders, many parishes, even whole dioceses, are experiencing not continued growth but shrinkage. The Archdiocese of New York is closing Churches and schools rather than building new ones. Does this parable still have meaning? Of course it does! If we’ve gotten smaller, the Lord has permitted it so that we can all experience anew the full meaning of this parable, through beginning again, beginning smaller, like the new mustard seed planted from the tall tree. The truth is that when the Church has become as big as a Middle Eastern mustard tree, we can forget many of the lessons that God teaches us in this lesson of the mustard seed. When the Church is a tree, an enormous institution,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Holy Family Parish, Manhattan

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

July 19, 2020

Wis 12:13.16-19, Ps 86, Rom 8:26-27, Mt 13:24-43

 

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

 

The following text guided today’s homily:

* Last week, Jesus gave us the parable of the Sower, Seed and Soil, to indicate to us how he wants us to receive his Word and his work within us. We know from our basic knowledge of farming what normally occurs once a seed has been implanted in good soil. It starts to grow and eventually produces fruit and those fruit likewise contain within many seeds that can then be planted elsewhere. Spiritually the same thing is supposed to happen. With a hat trick of different images in this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus describes that transition from a fertile disciple to a fruitful apostle in which we begin to share what we ourselves have received. His words contain three very important lessons about how the kingdom of God grows. Insofar as each of us has been called and chosen by God through the Church to enter into and expand his kingdom, these three parables are deeply relevant to who we are and what God calls us to do. In one parable, Jesus tells us first that the Church, like a mustard seed, starts small but will grow to be huge. In a second, he adds that the members of the Church are meant to function in the world like yeast does in bread; we’re supposed to make everything rise. In the third, he states that the Church’s growth doesn’t happen in a vacuum: there is also “an enemy” in the field, sowing weeds, to try to wreck God’s harvest — in other words to destroy you, me and those we know and love. The three go together and are meant to guide us at every moment of the Church’s life. Let’s look at them together.

* The first parable is that the Church begins like a tiny mustard seed. From the small seed of Christ implanted by God in Mary’s womb, to the calling of just a few disciples and apostles filled with the Holy Spirit, the Church was born and grew, grew into the largest of shrubs, in which countless people throughout the ages, including whole nations, have been able to come and find shelter in her branches. That tree continues to live we’re branches on Jesus the vine (Jn 15:5). The branches of the Church extend in areas of great sunshine and of great darkness, with all of us taking our roots in that one event, that one piece of soil on Calvary, that one seed of Jesus who fell to the ground three times and died, but rose again, like a plant in springtime, giving life to all of us throughout time. This lesson of the mustard seed recurs throughout Church history. So many religious orders and apostolates that the Lord has raised up to help the Church began small, often with one saint, but over the course of sufferings and patience, they grew to be enormous. So many parishes began with just a handful of poor, committed families, but over the course of years and decades, with sacrifices, time and the help the Lord, grew to be quite large.

* Sometimes we can ask ourselves, though, whether what Jesus said about the mustard seed has an expiration date. It seems that many religious orders, many parishes, even whole dioceses, are experiencing not continued growth but shrinkage. The Archdiocese of New York is closing Churches and schools rather than building new ones. Does this parable still have meaning? Of course it does! If we’ve gotten smaller, the Lord has permitted it so that we can all experience anew the full meaning of this parable, through beginning again, beginning smaller, like the new mustard seed planted from the tall tree. The truth is that when the Church has become as big as a Middle Eastern mustard tree, we can forget many of the lessons that God teaches us in this lesson of the mustard seed. When the Church is a tree, an enormous institution,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. Agnes Church, Manhattan

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Extraordinary Form

July 19, 2020

Rom 6:19-23, Mt 7:15-21

 

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

 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

* Yesterday the Church marked the 150th Anniversary of Vatican I’s Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, which formally defined as divinely revealed the dogma of papal infallibility. It put into words what the Church had long believed, that when the Pope, by virtue of his authority as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, defines a doctrine about faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he does so infallibly by means the divine assistance of the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised to Peter and to the Church. As I wrote in an article for the National Catholic Register celebrating this sesquicentenary, to clarify that the Pope can teach something as infallibly true is resolutely to proclaim that there is truth; that God is real; that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God and the Truth that sets us free, taught infallibly; and that he has given his own capacity to teach the truth without error to the Church and to those he has chosen, called and commissioned to lead the Church in communion with him.

* Jesus wants us to believe the truth, to live the truth and to teach the truth. The truth about God. The truth about the human person made in God’s image and likeness. The truth about prayer and the sacraments. The truth about right and wrong, good and evil, life and death, heaven and hell. The devil, on the other hand, is the “father of lies” (Jn 8:44), who seeks to deceive and confuse and ultimately get people to reject the truth about God, ourselves and others, and believe, live and teach falsehood.

* That’s why Jesus’ words today in the Gospel are so important. He tells us, “Beware of False Prophets,” those who rather than leading others in the ways of God lead them astray. Throughout the Old Testament, the chosen prophets of the Lord were always opposed by imposters, those who claimed the title prophet but didn’t speak the word of the Lord but a false word that their listeners often found more pleasant. False prophecy remained a major problem at the time of Jesus and the early Church. St. John wrote in his first letter, “Many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 Jn 4:1). St. Peter wrote, “There were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be lying teachers among you (2 Pet 2:1). The Didache, authored in the late first century as a type of catechesis for the first Christians, said, “Let every apostle that comes to you be received as the Lord,” but cautioned them to pay attention: “If he teaches so as to increase righteousness and the knowledge of the Lord, receive him as the Lord,” but “if the teacher, … teaches another doctrine opposed to this, do not listen to him.” The Didache summarizes, “Not every one who speaks [charismatically] is a prophet, but only the one who holds the ways of the Lord. So from their ways shall the false prophet and the prophet be known.”

* This issue, this serious responsibility, of knowing how to distinguish between true and false prophets didn’t end with the apostolic age. We see it in the many heresies throughout Church history. We see it today. There’s a type of false prophet who preaches a laxist, easy way, as if the road to life is broad and to perdition is narrow. He or she doesn’t live by or repeat Jesus’ challenge to lose our life to save it, to pick up our Cross each day and follow him, to sacrifice ourselves to wash others’ feet, to love God not just a little but with all our mind, heart, soul and strength and to love our neighbor in a self-sacrificial way as Jesus has loved us. This type of false prophet manipulates God’s unconditional love to pretend as if God never gave us the Ten Commandments to trai...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. Agnes Church, Manhattan

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Extraordinary Form

July 19, 2020

Rom 6:19-23, Mt 7:15-21

 

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

 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

* Yesterday the Church marked the 150th Anniversary of Vatican I’s Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, which formally defined as divinely revealed the dogma of papal infallibility. It put into words what the Church had long believed, that when the Pope, by virtue of his authority as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, defines a doctrine about faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he does so infallibly by means the divine assistance of the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised to Peter and to the Church. As I wrote in an article for the National Catholic Register celebrating this sesquicentenary, to clarify that the Pope can teach something as infallibly true is resolutely to proclaim that there is truth; that God is real; that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God and the Truth that sets us free, taught infallibly; and that he has given his own capacity to teach the truth without error to the Church and to those he has chosen, called and commissioned to lead the Church in communion with him.

* Jesus wants us to believe the truth, to live the truth and to teach the truth. The truth about God. The truth about the human person made in God’s image and likeness. The truth about prayer and the sacraments. The truth about right and wrong, good and evil, life and death, heaven and hell. The devil, on the other hand, is the “father of lies” (Jn 8:44), who seeks to deceive and confuse and ultimately get people to reject the truth about God, ourselves and others, and believe, live and teach falsehood.

* That’s why Jesus’ words today in the Gospel are so important. He tells us, “Beware of False Prophets,” those who rather than leading others in the ways of God lead them astray. Throughout the Old Testament, the chosen prophets of the Lord were always opposed by imposters, those who claimed the title prophet but didn’t speak the word of the Lord but a false word that their listeners often found more pleasant. False prophecy remained a major problem at the time of Jesus and the early Church. St. John wrote in his first letter, “Many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 Jn 4:1). St. Peter wrote, “There were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be lying teachers among you (2 Pet 2:1). The Didache, authored in the late first century as a type of catechesis for the first Christians, said, “Let every apostle that comes to you be received as the Lord,” but cautioned them to pay attention: “If he teaches so as to increase righteousness and the knowledge of the Lord, receive him as the Lord,” but “if the teacher, … teaches another doctrine opposed to this, do not listen to him.” The Didache summarizes, “Not every one who speaks [charismatically] is a prophet, but only the one who holds the ways of the Lord. So from their ways shall the false prophet and the prophet be known.”

* This issue, this serious responsibility, of knowing how to distinguish between true and false prophets didn’t end with the apostolic age. We see it in the many heresies throughout Church history. We see it today. There’s a type of false prophet who preaches a laxist, easy way, as if the road to life is broad and to perdition is narrow. He or she doesn’t live by or repeat Jesus’ challenge to lose our life to save it, to pick up our Cross each day and follow him, to sacrifice ourselves to wash others’ feet, to love God not just a little but with all our mind, heart, soul and strength and to love our neighbor in a self-sacrificial way as Jesus has loved us. This type of false prophet manipulates God’s unconditional love to pretend as if God never gave us the Ten Commandments to trai...