Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) (Vigil)

July 18, 2020

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/7.18.20_Landry_ConCon.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday.

* 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.

* 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. Even if some of us are living in an area in which the Church is shrinking, the Lord has permitted it so that we can all experience anew the full and exhilarating meaning of this parable, through beginning again, beginning smaller, like the new mustard seed planted from the tall tree.

* The second image Jesus gives us today to describe the growth of his kingdom in the Church is that of yeast in bread. The bread is the whole world and we Christians are called to be the leaven. One Christian in a neighborhood, or one truly Catholic family on a street,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Saturday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of St. Camillus de Lellis

July 18, 2020

Micah 2:1-5, Ps 10, Mt 12:14-21

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* It is quite an opening sentence to today’s Gospel. “The Pharisees went out and took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.” The Pharisees, as we know, had the reputation for being the most religious of Jews. Whereas the typical Jew fasted once a year on the Day of Atonement, the Pharisees fasted twice a week. Whereas the typical Jew prayed once a day, the Pharisees prayed three times a day. Whereas the normal Jew tithed only those things that were explicitly prescribed, the Pharisees tithed everything. They were the ones who tried to practice to the letter all of the Scribes’ prescriptions. But as much as they had a reputation for religious zeal, many of them were “whitewashed sepulchers,” as Jesus would call them later. They looked great on the outside, but on the inside they were full of dead men’s bones. They seemed to be living by the law of God but on the inside they were hateful, unloving and even murderous. In the first reading, the Prophet Micah (whom we have today for the first of three daily Masses) says, “Woe to those who plan iniquity, and work out evil on their couches,” who “mark out boundaries [of poor persons’  property they want to seize] by lot in the assembly of the Lord.” The Pharisees were those who would come in and out of the Synagogues and Temple areas, who would practice the faith, but who would then conspire to have someone killed. They were the ones, to quote today’s Psalm, whose “mouth is full of cursing, guile and deceit” and “under his tongue are mischief and iniquity,” the one who “lurks in ambush near the villages; in hiding he murders the innocent; his eyes spy upon the unfortunate.” It’s a practical hypocrisy that remains stunning 2,000 years later. It is a prelude to every religious scandal and an illustration of the ancient aphorism corruptio optimi pessima, the corruption of the best is worst of all.

* Why did they want to put Jesus to death? Because of Jesus’ whole approach to the Sabbath and to the law in general, which went against their rigid interpretation. In yesterday’s Gospel, they criticized Jesus for allowing his disciples to eat pick the heads of grain and eat them — even though that was totally permitted in the Mosaic law — because they were “working” on the sabbath, picking grain and threshing it in their hands. The Pharisees would rather have the disciples starve than to do that simple, unstrenuous work because they thought that that work was a violation of God’s command to keep holy the Sabbath day. Then, when Jesus entered the Synagogue to teach, he saw a man with a withered hand and he cured him, and the Pharisees were outraged that he did the work of healing on the Sabbath, as if what pleased God more was to have someone suffer than to be healed. Jesus gave the example that they would all rescue their animal on the Sabbath if it fell in a ditch, but they didn’t want this handicapped man to receive God’s healing. Both scenes show just how ignorant they were to God’s will and how resistant they were to anyone’s indicating to them what that will really was. God’s whole plan was to have men and women share his very life, to receive and live in his love, and to grow in his likeness by loving others in the same way. They thought in practice that God wanted people to starve and continue to live handicapped and burdened — which they considered part of sabbath worship! — and they were totally resistant to anything Jesus might say otherwise. Their real hypocrisy with regard to God’s law was exposed in all its ugliness ...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Saturday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of St. Camillus de Lellis

July 18, 2020

Micah 2:1-5, Ps 10, Mt 12:14-21

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* It is quite an opening sentence to today’s Gospel. “The Pharisees went out and took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.” The Pharisees, as we know, had the reputation for being the most religious of Jews. Whereas the typical Jew fasted once a year on the Day of Atonement, the Pharisees fasted twice a week. Whereas the typical Jew prayed once a day, the Pharisees prayed three times a day. Whereas the normal Jew tithed only those things that were explicitly prescribed, the Pharisees tithed everything. They were the ones who tried to practice to the letter all of the Scribes’ prescriptions. But as much as they had a reputation for religious zeal, many of them were “whitewashed sepulchers,” as Jesus would call them later. They looked great on the outside, but on the inside they were full of dead men’s bones. They seemed to be living by the law of God but on the inside they were hateful, unloving and even murderous. In the first reading, the Prophet Micah (whom we have today for the first of three daily Masses) says, “Woe to those who plan iniquity, and work out evil on their couches,” who “mark out boundaries [of poor persons’  property they want to seize] by lot in the assembly of the Lord.” The Pharisees were those who would come in and out of the Synagogues and Temple areas, who would practice the faith, but who would then conspire to have someone killed. They were the ones, to quote today’s Psalm, whose “mouth is full of cursing, guile and deceit” and “under his tongue are mischief and iniquity,” the one who “lurks in ambush near the villages; in hiding he murders the innocent; his eyes spy upon the unfortunate.” It’s a practical hypocrisy that remains stunning 2,000 years later. It is a prelude to every religious scandal and an illustration of the ancient aphorism corruptio optimi pessima, the corruption of the best is worst of all.

* Why did they want to put Jesus to death? Because of Jesus’ whole approach to the Sabbath and to the law in general, which went against their rigid interpretation. In yesterday’s Gospel, they criticized Jesus for allowing his disciples to eat pick the heads of grain and eat them — even though that was totally permitted in the Mosaic law — because they were “working” on the sabbath, picking grain and threshing it in their hands. The Pharisees would rather have the disciples starve than to do that simple, unstrenuous work because they thought that that work was a violation of God’s command to keep holy the Sabbath day. Then, when Jesus entered the Synagogue to teach, he saw a man with a withered hand and he cured him, and the Pharisees were outraged that he did the work of healing on the Sabbath, as if what pleased God more was to have someone suffer than to be healed. Jesus gave the example that they would all rescue their animal on the Sabbath if it fell in a ditch, but they didn’t want this handicapped man to receive God’s healing. Both scenes show just how ignorant they were to God’s will and how resistant they were to anyone’s indicating to them what that will really was. God’s whole plan was to have men and women share his very life, to receive and live in his love, and to grow in his likeness by loving others in the same way. They thought in practice that God wanted people to starve and continue to live handicapped and burdened — which they considered part of sabbath worship! — and they were totally resistant to anything Jesus might say otherwise. Their real hypocrisy with regard to God’s law was exposed in all its ugliness ...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Friday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart

July 17, 2020

Is 38:1-8.21-22, Is 38, Mt 12:1-8

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in this homily: 

* As we celebrate today a votive Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the readings today help us to ponder God’s great mercy that is at the essence of the revelation of the Sacred Heart and how he wants our hearts to be truly “misericors” as well, moved with loving compassion. Today Jesus says in the Gospel, “It is mercy I desire, not sacrifice.” This is not the first time he’s said those words. We remember that after Jesus called St. Matthew to conversion and the former tax collector threw a party for all of his fellow sinners to encounter Jesus, the Pharisees complained that Jesus was associating with sinners. Jesus replied that he had come to call sinners, not the self-righteous, and that it is the sick who need a doctor not those who think they’re fine. Then he said, referring to the prophet Hosea, “Go and learn the meaning of the phrase, “It is mercy I desire, not sacrifice.” In repeating that phrase today, Jesus shows just how central it is for what he teaches and enfleshes: everything God does in his relationship with us can be summarized as an expression of his merciful love, and he so wants to transform us that we can become merciful like he is merciful.

* The setting in the Gospel takes place because the Scribes and Pharisees had lost the center for the peripheries, the one thing necessary for so many other things. After the Babylonian Captivity the Jews realized — accurately — that the reason for their exile was because they had been unfaithful to God’s law, and in an excess of precaution began to become so obsessed about the little details of the law that they missed the forest for the trees, they missed the Legislator because of the legislation. The class of scribes, the scholars of the law, arose in order to study every word, and then, in order to prevent Jews from violating it, began, as many scholars like to analogize, draw fences around the law so that they wouldn’t possibly violate it. With regard to the Sabbath, if the point of the Sabbath was to keep it holy, to keep it as a day of freedom apart from enslaving work, then they would make all types of regulations so that they wouldn’t get anywhere close to violating it. So they determined in minutiae what would be the minimalist form of work and invented rules that many Jews began to take as seriously as the commandments. For example, they said that on the Sabbath you couldn’t lift anything that would weigh more than two dry figs, they described how far you could walk, they said that you couldn’t prepare food, and so on. They had totally missed the point of the commandment! Rather than a gift of God giving us a chance to set the reset button in our relationship with him and others, rather than a day of love and freedom, it became a day of a more intense form of slavery. That’s one of the most important things that Jesus came to fix.

* Today we begin the Twelfth Chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel which is all about Jesus’ bringing the Sabbath back to its original meaning and how that would get the Scribes and Pharisees — those who assiduously studied the Word of God and committed themselves to living it to the letter — to begin plotting to kill him. The violated the Fifth Commandment in order to fulfill, they thought, the Third! As we’ll see, his critics will go from observing and confronting him in today’s Gospel, to observing whether he’d heal — do an act of love — to plotting to kill him, to persecution. Today Jesus is walking through the fields of grain with the disciples on the Sabbath.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Friday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart

July 17, 2020

Is 38:1-8.21-22, Is 38, Mt 12:1-8

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in this homily: 

* As we celebrate today a votive Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the readings today help us to ponder God’s great mercy that is at the essence of the revelation of the Sacred Heart and how he wants our hearts to be truly “misericors” as well, moved with loving compassion. Today Jesus says in the Gospel, “It is mercy I desire, not sacrifice.” This is not the first time he’s said those words. We remember that after Jesus called St. Matthew to conversion and the former tax collector threw a party for all of his fellow sinners to encounter Jesus, the Pharisees complained that Jesus was associating with sinners. Jesus replied that he had come to call sinners, not the self-righteous, and that it is the sick who need a doctor not those who think they’re fine. Then he said, referring to the prophet Hosea, “Go and learn the meaning of the phrase, “It is mercy I desire, not sacrifice.” In repeating that phrase today, Jesus shows just how central it is for what he teaches and enfleshes: everything God does in his relationship with us can be summarized as an expression of his merciful love, and he so wants to transform us that we can become merciful like he is merciful.

* The setting in the Gospel takes place because the Scribes and Pharisees had lost the center for the peripheries, the one thing necessary for so many other things. After the Babylonian Captivity the Jews realized — accurately — that the reason for their exile was because they had been unfaithful to God’s law, and in an excess of precaution began to become so obsessed about the little details of the law that they missed the forest for the trees, they missed the Legislator because of the legislation. The class of scribes, the scholars of the law, arose in order to study every word, and then, in order to prevent Jews from violating it, began, as many scholars like to analogize, draw fences around the law so that they wouldn’t possibly violate it. With regard to the Sabbath, if the point of the Sabbath was to keep it holy, to keep it as a day of freedom apart from enslaving work, then they would make all types of regulations so that they wouldn’t get anywhere close to violating it. So they determined in minutiae what would be the minimalist form of work and invented rules that many Jews began to take as seriously as the commandments. For example, they said that on the Sabbath you couldn’t lift anything that would weigh more than two dry figs, they described how far you could walk, they said that you couldn’t prepare food, and so on. They had totally missed the point of the commandment! Rather than a gift of God giving us a chance to set the reset button in our relationship with him and others, rather than a day of love and freedom, it became a day of a more intense form of slavery. That’s one of the most important things that Jesus came to fix.

* Today we begin the Twelfth Chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel which is all about Jesus’ bringing the Sabbath back to its original meaning and how that would get the Scribes and Pharisees — those who assiduously studied the Word of God and committed themselves to living it to the letter — to begin plotting to kill him. The violated the Fifth Commandment in order to fulfill, they thought, the Third! As we’ll see, his critics will go from observing and confronting him in today’s Gospel, to observing whether he’d heal — do an act of love — to plotting to kill him, to persecution. Today Jesus is walking through the fields of grain with the disciples on the Sabbath.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, New York, NY

Thursday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel

July 16, 2020

Is 26:7-9.12.16-19, Ps 102, Mt 11:28-30

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* In today’s Gospel, Jesus brings to culmination all of his words and actions throughout the past week and a half about welcoming. It’s the way he puts into practice what he taught yesterday about the spiritual childlike receptivity we are called to have toward God’s self-revelation in his very person. Everything is encapsulated in three actions, three verbs, that he wants us to do in response to the grace of his entrance into the world, into our life.

* The first verb is come. Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened.” It would seem at first a non-sequitur to his words of yesterday, that in order to perceive God’s self-revelation we need to be like children, even infants, and see the Father in Jesus. But it’s not unconnected. The way we are going to be able to learn how to grow more deeply in spiritual childhood is precisely through our labors and burdens, through our hardships and sacrifices. These experiences are those that make us run to God the Father like a young child hearing powerful thunder for the first time runs to earthly parents. Jesus extends to us this invitation to enter as children more and more deeply into God’s revelation precisely through all that we’re going through, through all the various obstacles and challenges. He says if we do, he will give us “rest,” he will “refresh” us. The word translated “refresh” (or poorly translated as “give you rest,” which we are tempted to misinterpret as inactivity) actually means “remake.” Jesus wants to give us a totally fresh start, a new beginning, and bring us back to our spiritual infancy. In Psalm 23, we pray in anticipation of this remaking, “The Lord is my Shepherd. There is nothing I lack. In green pastures you lead me to grace and besides restful waters you refresh [remake] me.” He thoroughly remakes us in his image and baptism and that life is meant to continue. In the first reading, the people of Judah articulated some of the burdens by which the Lord was seeking to refresh them when they said, “O Lord, oppressed by your punishment, we cried out in anguish. … As a woman about to give birth writhes and cries out in her pains, so were we in your presence, O Lord.” But these types of physical burdens were not the only ones being pointed out by Jesus. He was also describing were the spiritual burdens placed on their shoulders by the Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus said about them that “they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them” (Mt 23:4). They were crushing people by their interpretation of the 613 commandments contained in the Old Covenant and the strictures they devised not to come close to violating them. They were piling up duties without introducing them into a relationship with the God who gave the real commandments to train us how to love Him and love others. They were instructing people to carry those burdens almost on their own…  Jesus wanted to help save them from those burdens. He called us to come to him so that he would “refresh” us. But they needed to make the effort to respond to Jesus’ own coming, and go to Jesus not only with our burdens and work but through them.

* The second action Jesus commands is to “take” or “assume.” Jesus tells us “Take my yoke upon you.” Jesus doesn’t tell us to bend down and let him put the yoke on us. He wants us to seize it. He wants us to want it. What’s that yoke? We know that a yoke is a harness — Jesus doubtless would make some of them ...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, New York, NY

Thursday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel

July 16, 2020

Is 26:7-9.12.16-19, Ps 102, Mt 11:28-30

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* In today’s Gospel, Jesus brings to culmination all of his words and actions throughout the past week and a half about welcoming. It’s the way he puts into practice what he taught yesterday about the spiritual childlike receptivity we are called to have toward God’s self-revelation in his very person. Everything is encapsulated in three actions, three verbs, that he wants us to do in response to the grace of his entrance into the world, into our life.

* The first verb is come. Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened.” It would seem at first a non-sequitur to his words of yesterday, that in order to perceive God’s self-revelation we need to be like children, even infants, and see the Father in Jesus. But it’s not unconnected. The way we are going to be able to learn how to grow more deeply in spiritual childhood is precisely through our labors and burdens, through our hardships and sacrifices. These experiences are those that make us run to God the Father like a young child hearing powerful thunder for the first time runs to earthly parents. Jesus extends to us this invitation to enter as children more and more deeply into God’s revelation precisely through all that we’re going through, through all the various obstacles and challenges. He says if we do, he will give us “rest,” he will “refresh” us. The word translated “refresh” (or poorly translated as “give you rest,” which we are tempted to misinterpret as inactivity) actually means “remake.” Jesus wants to give us a totally fresh start, a new beginning, and bring us back to our spiritual infancy. In Psalm 23, we pray in anticipation of this remaking, “The Lord is my Shepherd. There is nothing I lack. In green pastures you lead me to grace and besides restful waters you refresh [remake] me.” He thoroughly remakes us in his image and baptism and that life is meant to continue. In the first reading, the people of Judah articulated some of the burdens by which the Lord was seeking to refresh them when they said, “O Lord, oppressed by your punishment, we cried out in anguish. … As a woman about to give birth writhes and cries out in her pains, so were we in your presence, O Lord.” But these types of physical burdens were not the only ones being pointed out by Jesus. He was also describing were the spiritual burdens placed on their shoulders by the Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus said about them that “they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them” (Mt 23:4). They were crushing people by their interpretation of the 613 commandments contained in the Old Covenant and the strictures they devised not to come close to violating them. They were piling up duties without introducing them into a relationship with the God who gave the real commandments to train us how to love Him and love others. They were instructing people to carry those burdens almost on their own…  Jesus wanted to help save them from those burdens. He called us to come to him so that he would “refresh” us. But they needed to make the effort to respond to Jesus’ own coming, and go to Jesus not only with our burdens and work but through them.

* The second action Jesus commands is to “take” or “assume.” Jesus tells us “Take my yoke upon you.” Jesus doesn’t tell us to bend down and let him put the yoke on us. He wants us to seize it. He wants us to want it. What’s that yoke? We know that a yoke is a harness — Jesus doubtless would make some of them ...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Wednesday of the 15th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of St. Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor

July 15, 2020

Is 10:5-7.13-16, Ps 94, Mt 11:25-27

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily:

* Today’s Gospel allows Jesus to continue to guide us as to the good soil about which he spoke to us on Sunday as well as to how we’re supposed to learn from the mistakes of Capernaum, Chorazin and Bethsaida in order to receive him and his saving work into our life and to understand the receptivity others will show to us when we are seeking to proclaim the Gospel in Jesus’ name. Jesus describes that it is the will of the Father to reveal himself to us and to others, but there are three conditions to our and others’ receptivity to God’s self-revelation.

* First, God the Father reveals himself to us in his Son as the Son reveals himself to us by through the Father. Jesus tells us, “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” The way we come to know God the Father and the depth of his ardent love is through Jesus’ choosing to reveal him to us. We rejoice that he has so chosen to reveal him to us. Jesus is the icon of the Father and also speaks not only of the Father but also what he hears the Father saying. His whole mission on earth was to help us not only come to know the Father but to enter into loving communion with him, as Jesus teaches us by word and example to relate to him as “Our Father” and to seek to hallow his name, enter into his kingdom, and do his will.

* Second, to receive this revelation we must do so not just through some generic spiritual childhood but by entering into Jesus’ spiritual childhood. Jesus joyfully exclaims in prayer, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.” We can’t get to know the Father as Father unless we see ourselves not just as children but specifically as hischildren — and we do that in Jesus. The wise and the clever of this world try to pretend as “grown-ups,” who say, “Thanks, but I’ve got it from here,” who want to be self-sufficient rather than dependent on the Father, who behave like the sons in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the first of whom treats the Father as if he is as good as dead to him and no longer needed, and the second treats him more as a slave master than as a dad. To receive the revelation of the Father, we need to be open like children, we need to be receptive and trusting, we need to learn from Jesus, who is not only the revelation of the Father but also the revelation of how to relate to the Father as a beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased. When Jesus describes the “wise and the clever,” we should note, he’s not castigating intelligence but intellectual pride. We see this type of pride in the Assyrians in today’s first reading from the Prophet Isaiah. God was delivering his people in the kingdom of Judah into the Assyrians’ hand to help his people realize what they had done in entrusting themselves to Assyria rather than God. It was to help his people convert. But Assyria responded with arrogance, in order to bring his people to conversion, but they responded with arrogance. They were the “axe,” “saw,” “rod” and “staff” God used, but they forget that they were instruments in the hands of the Almighty rather than almighty themselves. Putting Assyria’s attitude into words, God describes through his prophet Isaiah the Assyrians’ intellectual pride: “By my own power I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am shrewd,” the Assyrians were saying. “I have moved the boundaries of peoples,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Wednesday of the 15th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of St. Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor

July 15, 2020

Is 10:5-7.13-16, Ps 94, Mt 11:25-27

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily:

* Today’s Gospel allows Jesus to continue to guide us as to the good soil about which he spoke to us on Sunday as well as to how we’re supposed to learn from the mistakes of Capernaum, Chorazin and Bethsaida in order to receive him and his saving work into our life and to understand the receptivity others will show to us when we are seeking to proclaim the Gospel in Jesus’ name. Jesus describes that it is the will of the Father to reveal himself to us and to others, but there are three conditions to our and others’ receptivity to God’s self-revelation.

* First, God the Father reveals himself to us in his Son as the Son reveals himself to us by through the Father. Jesus tells us, “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” The way we come to know God the Father and the depth of his ardent love is through Jesus’ choosing to reveal him to us. We rejoice that he has so chosen to reveal him to us. Jesus is the icon of the Father and also speaks not only of the Father but also what he hears the Father saying. His whole mission on earth was to help us not only come to know the Father but to enter into loving communion with him, as Jesus teaches us by word and example to relate to him as “Our Father” and to seek to hallow his name, enter into his kingdom, and do his will.

* Second, to receive this revelation we must do so not just through some generic spiritual childhood but by entering into Jesus’ spiritual childhood. Jesus joyfully exclaims in prayer, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.” We can’t get to know the Father as Father unless we see ourselves not just as children but specifically as hischildren — and we do that in Jesus. The wise and the clever of this world try to pretend as “grown-ups,” who say, “Thanks, but I’ve got it from here,” who want to be self-sufficient rather than dependent on the Father, who behave like the sons in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the first of whom treats the Father as if he is as good as dead to him and no longer needed, and the second treats him more as a slave master than as a dad. To receive the revelation of the Father, we need to be open like children, we need to be receptive and trusting, we need to learn from Jesus, who is not only the revelation of the Father but also the revelation of how to relate to the Father as a beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased. When Jesus describes the “wise and the clever,” we should note, he’s not castigating intelligence but intellectual pride. We see this type of pride in the Assyrians in today’s first reading from the Prophet Isaiah. God was delivering his people in the kingdom of Judah into the Assyrians’ hand to help his people realize what they had done in entrusting themselves to Assyria rather than God. It was to help his people convert. But Assyria responded with arrogance, in order to bring his people to conversion, but they responded with arrogance. They were the “axe,” “saw,” “rod” and “staff” God used, but they forget that they were instruments in the hands of the Almighty rather than almighty themselves. Putting Assyria’s attitude into words, God describes through his prophet Isaiah the Assyrians’ intellectual pride: “By my own power I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am shrewd,” the Assyrians were saying. “I have moved the boundaries of peoples,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Tuesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, Virgin

July 14, 2020

Is 7:1-9, Ps 48, Mt 11:20-24

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Yesterday we finished a week-long examination of the instructions Jesus gave to the Twelve before he sent them out and we mentioned as an aside that after he had “finished giving these commands to his twelve disciples, he went away from that place to teach and to preach in their towns.” Jesus himself went out to preach and to practice what he had preached to the Twelve. He went out to announce that the kingdom of God was at hand and therefore it was essential to repent and believe. He went out to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers and drive out demons. He went out without gold or silver or copper for his belt, with no sack for the journey, no second tunic, sandals, or walking stick. He went out as a Lamb among wolves, as wise as a serpent and as pure as a dove, wishing peace upon all those who met him. And as we pondered yesterday, what he looking for above all was welcome. He was seeking those who could welcome him and in welcoming him welcome God the Father and the whole salvific mission. But he also had warned the Twelve that they, like him, would encounter those who were hardened and unwelcoming, who would respond, as our Psalm says, with hardened hearts to the voice of the Lord.

* Today Jesus preaches about three different places — Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum — that ultimately were unwelcoming to Jesus. On the surface, these were places that very much seemed to embrace Jesus. Capernaum during his public ministry was actually called his “home” (Mt 9:1), his home base after departing from Nazareth. They were the cities where Jesus, according to St. Matthew, had worked “most of his mighty deeds.” Jesus had called his apostles from these towns, he had preached in these squares and synagogues, he had cast out demons, healed countless sick people assembled at the door of Peter’s house, fed a multitude with a few buns and sardines and yet, even though many were bringing him friends on stretchers and the whole town was bring their sick to him, they still hadn’t really welcomed him. The reason is because they had given welcome only to those parts of what Jesus was doing that had fit into their own categories. They weren’t really welcoming his message and mission. They weren’t really open to change. They had heard his words calling them to conversion, to a new way of life, to follow him in big things and in small, to love him more than they loved their parents or children or even life, and they responded not with open hearts but hardened ones.

* That’s why Jesus today reproaches the towns for their lack of faith, comparing them negatively to Tyre and Sidon, the debauched metropolises of Phoenicia north of the Holy Land, and to Sodom, one the most notoriously sinful and unwelcoming cities in history, there the residents literally tried to “sodomize” the messengers sent by God to Lot’s house. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!,” Jesus said. “For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.” The word “woe” is not so much a word of anger but of crushed disappointment. It’s as if he were saying, “What a tragedy, Chorazin and Bethsaida! What an absolute pity, Capernaum!” Jesus had come to save them, and his deeds were physical manifestations of greater miracles he wanted to work in their souls, but they didn’t want to cooperate, they didn’t want to change, they didn’t want to repent and believe.