Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Wednesday of the 14th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Votive Mass for the Evangelization of Peoples

July 8, 2020

Hos 10:1-3.7-8.12, Ps 105, Mt 10:1-7

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today God through the Prophet Hosea reminds Israel that it is a “luxuriant vine,” meant to bear fruit — not just the earthly fruit that God made possible from this “land flowing with milk and honey” but abundant spiritual fruit in response to God’s spousal love. But God says through Hosea that the more physical fruit they bore, the richer they became, the more pagan altars and fertility poles they built to Ba’al. Rather than sowing justice and reaping the fruit of piety, they were sowing thorns and thistles. God’s fidelity and blessing were being responded to with infidelity and evil. But rather than being consumed with righteous indignation, God is consumed with mercy: “It is the time to seek the Lord,” he says, “until he come and rain down justice upon you.” God rained that justice down in his Son, Jesus, the Just One (Is 45:8) who came to help the world, beginning with Israel, to sow justice, reap piety, and bear fruit worthy of the luxuriance with which God had endowed them. Hosea urged them to “seek the Lord,” and in the Psalm we see how that yearning was increasing, as the people prayed for the grace always to seek the Lord from their hearts.

* Today in the Gospel we see the fulfillment of that longing as that Just One whom God rained down was instituting his kingdom, calling, authorizing and sending out laborers for the harvest of his luxuriant vineyard. Yesterday, we remember, Jesus had the apostles pray to the Harvest Master, his Father, to send laborers for his harvest. Today, after they prayed and after Jesus prayed all night, God the Father responded by calling the very ones Jesus asked to pray, and he sent them out to collect the harvest that is ever white and ripe. It points to the central truth that the Lord wants all of us to pray and the Lord wants all of us to recognize that the Father is calling us, in different ways, to be those very laborers strengthened by that prayer, the divine calling, and the divine commissioning. We see various elements of that harvesting that Jesus sends us out to accomplish.

* The first is to proclaim that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, or literally “has approached.” The Kingdom is present because the King has arrived. The Kingdom of God is, in short, God. It’s where he reigns. To proclaim the Kingdom at hand is to say, “God is here” and “We need to let him reign in our lives.” Jesus sent out the 12 and he sends out us to proclaim, not merely with our words but with the way we live, that we’re not alone, that God is alive, that is he is with us, and that letting him reign in our lives has made all the difference in saving us and joyfully transforming us. The kingdom of God is one of fruitful spousal love.

* As part of the proclamation that God is among us, Jesus sends the 12 out with his authority to expel demons and heal every disease and illness. It must have blown them away to hear and receive this commission of the Lord’s authority. He was sending them out, in other words, with far more than a message to announce; he was sending them with deeds to accomplish. These deeds were signs that the kingdom had come, that the Messiah had arrived, and that the time for change was now. The Church in every age needs to be signs of that exorcism, no longer letting the prince of this world, the father of lies, have any dominion over us and bringing people to Jesus to experience that same liberation. Likewise we need to be the nurses of the Divine Physician and,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Wednesday of the 14th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Votive Mass for the Evangelization of Peoples

July 8, 2020

Hos 10:1-3.7-8.12, Ps 105, Mt 10:1-7

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today God through the Prophet Hosea reminds Israel that it is a “luxuriant vine,” meant to bear fruit — not just the earthly fruit that God made possible from this “land flowing with milk and honey” but abundant spiritual fruit in response to God’s spousal love. But God says through Hosea that the more physical fruit they bore, the richer they became, the more pagan altars and fertility poles they built to Ba’al. Rather than sowing justice and reaping the fruit of piety, they were sowing thorns and thistles. God’s fidelity and blessing were being responded to with infidelity and evil. But rather than being consumed with righteous indignation, God is consumed with mercy: “It is the time to seek the Lord,” he says, “until he come and rain down justice upon you.” God rained that justice down in his Son, Jesus, the Just One (Is 45:8) who came to help the world, beginning with Israel, to sow justice, reap piety, and bear fruit worthy of the luxuriance with which God had endowed them. Hosea urged them to “seek the Lord,” and in the Psalm we see how that yearning was increasing, as the people prayed for the grace always to seek the Lord from their hearts.

* Today in the Gospel we see the fulfillment of that longing as that Just One whom God rained down was instituting his kingdom, calling, authorizing and sending out laborers for the harvest of his luxuriant vineyard. Yesterday, we remember, Jesus had the apostles pray to the Harvest Master, his Father, to send laborers for his harvest. Today, after they prayed and after Jesus prayed all night, God the Father responded by calling the very ones Jesus asked to pray, and he sent them out to collect the harvest that is ever white and ripe. It points to the central truth that the Lord wants all of us to pray and the Lord wants all of us to recognize that the Father is calling us, in different ways, to be those very laborers strengthened by that prayer, the divine calling, and the divine commissioning. We see various elements of that harvesting that Jesus sends us out to accomplish.

* The first is to proclaim that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, or literally “has approached.” The Kingdom is present because the King has arrived. The Kingdom of God is, in short, God. It’s where he reigns. To proclaim the Kingdom at hand is to say, “God is here” and “We need to let him reign in our lives.” Jesus sent out the 12 and he sends out us to proclaim, not merely with our words but with the way we live, that we’re not alone, that God is alive, that is he is with us, and that letting him reign in our lives has made all the difference in saving us and joyfully transforming us. The kingdom of God is one of fruitful spousal love.

* As part of the proclamation that God is among us, Jesus sends the 12 out with his authority to expel demons and heal every disease and illness. It must have blown them away to hear and receive this commission of the Lord’s authority. He was sending them out, in other words, with far more than a message to announce; he was sending them with deeds to accomplish. These deeds were signs that the kingdom had come, that the Messiah had arrived, and that the time for change was now. The Church in every age needs to be signs of that exorcism, no longer letting the prince of this world, the father of lies, have any dominion over us and bringing people to Jesus to experience that same liberation. Likewise we need to be the nurses of the Divine Physician and,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

July 7, 2020

Hos 8:4-7.11-13, Ps 115, Mt 9:32-38

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* In the Gospel today, Jesus carries out an exorcism. He had come into the world to cast out the power of Satan and inaugurate the Kingdom of God. This possessed man had been brought to him by friends. Satan had silenced him. When Jesus cast out the devil, the formerly mute man spoke and then everyone else spoke, glorifying God and saying that they had never seen such marvels. But the Pharisees also spoke, saying that Jesus was casting out demons by the power of the devil. They did not realize that they were under the sway of the devil to proffer such a lie. The Gospel goes on to show Jesus’ passion and compassion, going to all the towns and villages, teaching, proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom and curing every disease and illness. Everything about his public ministry can be summarized by St. Matthew’s phrase, “At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus was sick to his stomach with mercy because we were mangled and alone. He commented that the harvest is abundant but needs laborers and begs the disciples to pray for laborers. We’ll see tomorrow that he calls twelve of those disciples to be among those laborers.

* In first reading, we encounter anew the work of the devil, we see how God’s people in the Kingdom of Israel at the time of Hosea, in the middle of the 700s BC, were being manipulated by the evil one and were lost without the Lord as their Shepherd. The father of lies always seeks to implant his lies and to destroy the spousal covenant God has made with his people, just like he sought to divide by his lies Adam and Eve, whose communion of persons in love was created to be the image of God. We  focused yesterday on the spousal imagery in Hosea 2 and how every sin against God is a one of spiritual adultery against the Covenant God has made with us. And today in the eighth chapter we get a list of those sins of infidelity. Right before today’s passage begins, God told Hosea to put a trumpet to his lips to announce how they’ve violated his spousal covenant and God begins by saying, “While to me they cry out, ‘O God of Israel, we know you,’ the men of Israel have thrown away what is good.” They claim to know the Lord, but they really don’t and show that they don’t by giving into the unfaithfulness described. Since they don’t treat God as their leader, “they made kings, but not by my authority; they established princes, but without my approval,” and they sought security not in God but in Assyria. Because they were not worshipping him as he had shown them how, “with their silver and gold they made idols for themselves, to their own destruction,” like the “calf of Samaria,” replicating the golden calf made by the Israelites in the desert, “gods,” to quote today’s psalm, that have mouths that don’t speak, eyes that don’t see, ears that don’t hear, noses that don’t smell, hands that don’t feel, feet that don’t walk. It says that “their makers shall be like them,” meaning they will become lifeless through the worship of gods that cannot give life. God continues through Hosea and says they look to Ephraim, rather than to God, for love. They treat God’s ordinances, he says, as if a stranger gave them. All of this was full of emptiness: “The stalk of grain that forms no ear can yield no flour,” he tells them. And they would experience the destruction of what they were choosing: “Whe...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

July 7, 2020

Hos 8:4-7.11-13, Ps 115, Mt 9:32-38

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* In the Gospel today, Jesus carries out an exorcism. He had come into the world to cast out the power of Satan and inaugurate the Kingdom of God. This possessed man had been brought to him by friends. Satan had silenced him. When Jesus cast out the devil, the formerly mute man spoke and then everyone else spoke, glorifying God and saying that they had never seen such marvels. But the Pharisees also spoke, saying that Jesus was casting out demons by the power of the devil. They did not realize that they were under the sway of the devil to proffer such a lie. The Gospel goes on to show Jesus’ passion and compassion, going to all the towns and villages, teaching, proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom and curing every disease and illness. Everything about his public ministry can be summarized by St. Matthew’s phrase, “At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus was sick to his stomach with mercy because we were mangled and alone. He commented that the harvest is abundant but needs laborers and begs the disciples to pray for laborers. We’ll see tomorrow that he calls twelve of those disciples to be among those laborers.

* In first reading, we encounter anew the work of the devil, we see how God’s people in the Kingdom of Israel at the time of Hosea, in the middle of the 700s BC, were being manipulated by the evil one and were lost without the Lord as their Shepherd. The father of lies always seeks to implant his lies and to destroy the spousal covenant God has made with his people, just like he sought to divide by his lies Adam and Eve, whose communion of persons in love was created to be the image of God. We  focused yesterday on the spousal imagery in Hosea 2 and how every sin against God is a one of spiritual adultery against the Covenant God has made with us. And today in the eighth chapter we get a list of those sins of infidelity. Right before today’s passage begins, God told Hosea to put a trumpet to his lips to announce how they’ve violated his spousal covenant and God begins by saying, “While to me they cry out, ‘O God of Israel, we know you,’ the men of Israel have thrown away what is good.” They claim to know the Lord, but they really don’t and show that they don’t by giving into the unfaithfulness described. Since they don’t treat God as their leader, “they made kings, but not by my authority; they established princes, but without my approval,” and they sought security not in God but in Assyria. Because they were not worshipping him as he had shown them how, “with their silver and gold they made idols for themselves, to their own destruction,” like the “calf of Samaria,” replicating the golden calf made by the Israelites in the desert, “gods,” to quote today’s psalm, that have mouths that don’t speak, eyes that don’t see, ears that don’t hear, noses that don’t smell, hands that don’t feel, feet that don’t walk. It says that “their makers shall be like them,” meaning they will become lifeless through the worship of gods that cannot give life. God continues through Hosea and says they look to Ephraim, rather than to God, for love. They treat God’s ordinances, he says, as if a stranger gave them. All of this was full of emptiness: “The stalk of grain that forms no ear can yield no flour,” he tells them. And they would experience the destruction of what they were choosing: “Whe...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of Saint Maria Goretti

July 6, 2020

Hos 2:16-18.21-22, Ps 145, Mt 9:18-26

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Last week we examined in the first reading God’s word through the Prophet Amos, given in the 8th century BC to the people of the Kingdom of Israel in the north of the Holy Land. His preaching was fundamentally about the breakdown of morals, of justice, of love for God and neighbor, among those in the Kingdom and God’s call to conversion.Monday through Friday this week we will consider his contemporary, Hosea, who was preaching shortly thereafter to the people of the same Kingdom. Whereas Amos preached fundamentally about morals, through Hosea God preached about fundamental issues of spirituality, how they looked at God, received what he was giving, and responded. The fundamental image God has Hosea use is that of spousal love. He has Hosea marry a prostitute, Gomer, to symbolize how the people of the Kingdom have given themselves over to the cult of Ba’al, a worship of sex, but that God, through the prophetic ôt he inspired in Hosea’s marrying Gomer, was showing that he would take her back. Later, Gomer would engage in adultery, not being able to remain faithful to Hosea, just as the people of the Kingdom were not faithful to God, but even then, God willed to take Israel back. That’s the setting for today’s passage. Speaking in the future tense, God says about Israel, in touching, spousal words, “I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart. She shall respond there as in the days of her youth, when she came up from the land of Egypt. On that day, says the LORD. She shall call me ‘My husband,’ and never again ‘My baal.'” This is a play on words, because “Ba’al” was understood to be a word for “husband” in the cult of Ba’al, but husband as master and ruler, not as lover. God was saying something far more. “I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the Lord.” Throughout these words, God, as he did through Isaiah, revealed his love as spousal, a thing of choice, as a thing that involved a commitment for better or worse, in sickness and in health, for richer and poorer. It was true, just, loving, merciful, faithful and forever. He would forgive even spiritual adultery. And he was indicating that our relationship with Him in return should be marked not just with reverence for a Creator, God and Lord, but also by spousal affection for someone who has chosen us to be his despite our unworthiness. Our whole Christian life must be marked by the sense of being loved by God and loving him back.

* We see the particular love of God incarnate in Jesus Christ in his care for Jairus, for his daughter, and for the woman with the hemorrhage. They were not just people, but people loved with special care.  Jesus responded immediately to Jairus’ petition and went with him hastily, perseveringly, strengthening him with faith even after he received news that his daughter was dead. He indicates to him the life-giving reality of our spousal relationship with God. Similarly, Jesus called the little girl by name and gave her a foretaste of his resurrection. He asked that she be given something to eat, showing his care to provide even the most basic needs. With the anonymous woman, he wanted to meet her so that he could give her out of love the gift of salvation by faith, so that she would know that she was loved personally, not just anonymously.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of Saint Maria Goretti

July 6, 2020

Hos 2:16-18.21-22, Ps 145, Mt 9:18-26

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Last week we examined in the first reading God’s word through the Prophet Amos, given in the 8th century BC to the people of the Kingdom of Israel in the north of the Holy Land. His preaching was fundamentally about the breakdown of morals, of justice, of love for God and neighbor, among those in the Kingdom and God’s call to conversion.Monday through Friday this week we will consider his contemporary, Hosea, who was preaching shortly thereafter to the people of the same Kingdom. Whereas Amos preached fundamentally about morals, through Hosea God preached about fundamental issues of spirituality, how they looked at God, received what he was giving, and responded. The fundamental image God has Hosea use is that of spousal love. He has Hosea marry a prostitute, Gomer, to symbolize how the people of the Kingdom have given themselves over to the cult of Ba’al, a worship of sex, but that God, through the prophetic ôt he inspired in Hosea’s marrying Gomer, was showing that he would take her back. Later, Gomer would engage in adultery, not being able to remain faithful to Hosea, just as the people of the Kingdom were not faithful to God, but even then, God willed to take Israel back. That’s the setting for today’s passage. Speaking in the future tense, God says about Israel, in touching, spousal words, “I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart. She shall respond there as in the days of her youth, when she came up from the land of Egypt. On that day, says the LORD. She shall call me ‘My husband,’ and never again ‘My baal.'” This is a play on words, because “Ba’al” was understood to be a word for “husband” in the cult of Ba’al, but husband as master and ruler, not as lover. God was saying something far more. “I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the Lord.” Throughout these words, God, as he did through Isaiah, revealed his love as spousal, a thing of choice, as a thing that involved a commitment for better or worse, in sickness and in health, for richer and poorer. It was true, just, loving, merciful, faithful and forever. He would forgive even spiritual adultery. And he was indicating that our relationship with Him in return should be marked not just with reverence for a Creator, God and Lord, but also by spousal affection for someone who has chosen us to be his despite our unworthiness. Our whole Christian life must be marked by the sense of being loved by God and loving him back.

* We see the particular love of God incarnate in Jesus Christ in his care for Jairus, for his daughter, and for the woman with the hemorrhage. They were not just people, but people loved with special care.  Jesus responded immediately to Jairus’ petition and went with him hastily, perseveringly, strengthening him with faith even after he received news that his daughter was dead. He indicates to him the life-giving reality of our spousal relationship with God. Similarly, Jesus called the little girl by name and gave her a foretaste of his resurrection. He asked that she be given something to eat, showing his care to provide even the most basic needs. With the anonymous woman, he wanted to meet her so that he could give her out of love the gift of salvation by faith, so that she would know that she was loved personally, not just anonymously.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. Agnes Church, New York, NY

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Extraordinary Form

July 5, 2020

1 Pet 3:8-15, Mt 5:20-24

 

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

 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

* Today from the Sermon on the Mount, right after Jesus teaches us the beatitudes and gives us our vocation as Salt of the Earth and Light of the World, he makes explicit for us that his standards for our behavior are very high, something he would later develop as being holy as the Lord our God is holy, being merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful, loving others as he has loved us, and ultimately striving to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. He tells us that unless our righteousness — our right relationship with God — surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, we will not enter the kingdom of God. The scribes gave their lives to studying the word of God down to the smallest letter. The Pharisees were those who tried to live by what the Scribes taught, seeking to base their whole life on God’s word. Whereas the typical Jew prayed once a day, the Pharisees prayed three times daily. Whereas the typical Jew fasted once a year on the Day of Atonement, Pharisees fasted twice a week. Whereas the average Jew tithed just the things that they were supposed to tithe in the Mosaic law, the Pharisees gave ten percent of all they owned to God. The Scribes’ and the Pharisees’ standard of righteousness was very high, and Jesus was calling us to live by a higher standard.

* Before we get into what that higher standard is, it’s important for us to note that we are living at an age in which a call to high moral standards is not part of ordinary discourse. The standards of the world are basically that we’re supposed to be “nice,” the human equivalent of bland mushrooms in a strong cultural sauce, tolerant of everything that the world wants us to accept and intolerant of everything the world wants us to reject. Within the Church, standards in many places have been forgotten or watered down. Many reduce being Catholic to the mere fact of being baptized or received into the Church: whether we pray or play, keep or break promises, steal or sacrifice, come to Mass or sleep in, confess our sins or brag about them, are faithful to our spouse or cheat, provide for or neglect our family, forgive or settle scores, love or abuse the poor, teach the truth or tickle people’s ears, welcome or abort the littlest of Jesus’ brethren, it doesn’t matter, as long as we think we’re good people, as long as we love someone, as long as we do some good to somebody sometime somewhere, and aren’t judgmental toward anyone else — then no one will judge us either.

* Surveying today’s scene based on Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, St. John Paul II said in 2001, “The time has come to re-propose wholeheartedly to everyone this high standard of ordinary Christian living: the whole life of the Christian community and of Christian families must lead in this direction.” That high standard of ordinary Christian living, he said, is holiness. And he spoke about various of the means Christ gives us to make us holy — grace, prayer, Mass, confession, the Word of God, and putting that word into practice through charity — all means by which we allow him into our life so that he can help us from the inside to live by the high standards he sets us for us, his own, truly Christian standards.

* That brings us to the standards he describes for us today about anger and hatred. Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is going much deeper than the Decalogue, interiorizing the law, going to the roots of sin in the human heart. It’s not enough not to commit adultery in the flesh, he tells us: Jesus forbids adultery in the heart through lust. Whereas the Mosaic law limited retaliation to an eye for an eye,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. Agnes Church, New York, NY

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Extraordinary Form

July 5, 2020

1 Pet 3:8-15, Mt 5:20-24

 

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

 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

* Today from the Sermon on the Mount, right after Jesus teaches us the beatitudes and gives us our vocation as Salt of the Earth and Light of the World, he makes explicit for us that his standards for our behavior are very high, something he would later develop as being holy as the Lord our God is holy, being merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful, loving others as he has loved us, and ultimately striving to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. He tells us that unless our righteousness — our right relationship with God — surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, we will not enter the kingdom of God. The scribes gave their lives to studying the word of God down to the smallest letter. The Pharisees were those who tried to live by what the Scribes taught, seeking to base their whole life on God’s word. Whereas the typical Jew prayed once a day, the Pharisees prayed three times daily. Whereas the typical Jew fasted once a year on the Day of Atonement, Pharisees fasted twice a week. Whereas the average Jew tithed just the things that they were supposed to tithe in the Mosaic law, the Pharisees gave ten percent of all they owned to God. The Scribes’ and the Pharisees’ standard of righteousness was very high, and Jesus was calling us to live by a higher standard.

* Before we get into what that higher standard is, it’s important for us to note that we are living at an age in which a call to high moral standards is not part of ordinary discourse. The standards of the world are basically that we’re supposed to be “nice,” the human equivalent of bland mushrooms in a strong cultural sauce, tolerant of everything that the world wants us to accept and intolerant of everything the world wants us to reject. Within the Church, standards in many places have been forgotten or watered down. Many reduce being Catholic to the mere fact of being baptized or received into the Church: whether we pray or play, keep or break promises, steal or sacrifice, come to Mass or sleep in, confess our sins or brag about them, are faithful to our spouse or cheat, provide for or neglect our family, forgive or settle scores, love or abuse the poor, teach the truth or tickle people’s ears, welcome or abort the littlest of Jesus’ brethren, it doesn’t matter, as long as we think we’re good people, as long as we love someone, as long as we do some good to somebody sometime somewhere, and aren’t judgmental toward anyone else — then no one will judge us either.

* Surveying today’s scene based on Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, St. John Paul II said in 2001, “The time has come to re-propose wholeheartedly to everyone this high standard of ordinary Christian living: the whole life of the Christian community and of Christian families must lead in this direction.” That high standard of ordinary Christian living, he said, is holiness. And he spoke about various of the means Christ gives us to make us holy — grace, prayer, Mass, confession, the Word of God, and putting that word into practice through charity — all means by which we allow him into our life so that he can help us from the inside to live by the high standards he sets us for us, his own, truly Christian standards.

* That brings us to the standards he describes for us today about anger and hatred. Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is going much deeper than the Decalogue, interiorizing the law, going to the roots of sin in the human heart. It’s not enough not to commit adultery in the flesh, he tells us: Jesus forbids adultery in the heart through lust. Whereas the Mosaic law limited retaliation to an eye for an eye,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) (Vigil)

July 4, 2020

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/7.4.20_Landry_Con_Con_II.mp3

 

The text that guided the homily was: 

* 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.

* Jesus is going to give us one of the most incredible invitations we’ve ever received and, if we say yes to it, one of the most unbelievable guarantees. The God-man, our Savior, will say: “Come to me, all you who labor and find life burdensome.” That’s the invitation. “Come to me all you who are working hard but can’t see to fully get your head above water to feel secure; come to me all you who are burdened with anxieties of family life, work, age or health; come to me all you who are weighed down by sorrows, who are going through life with heavy hearts because you’ve lost a loved one or are worried about the health of someone close to you; come to me all you who are pressed down by your sins and the harm sins always bring to our lives and to the lives of those around us; all of you, COME.” After this invitation, he gives us the extraordinary promise: “And I will refresh you.” Think about what Jesus is saying: “All of you who have problems with human life — every single one of you — come to me, and I will renew you, bring you back to life, make you see the blessing in what you see as a burden.” That’s what he said to his listeners two thousand years ago — who must have been shocked by so categorical a promise — and that’s what he says to each one of us this weekend. Any there any takers? Don’t all of us need Jesus’ help to bear heavy burdens?

* To understand better Jesus’ amazing offer, we first have to look at whom Jesus is summoning and whom he isn’t. Jesus addresses his invitation to those who are “labor” and are carrying heavy burdens. He is not calling to himself in this way those who are lazy, who pass the buck, who don’t roll up their sleeves and work up a sweat. He’s not inviting those who are seeking a comfortable, easy life. When Jesus says “follow me!,” he’s not intending to lead us to a beach resort or a superyacht; he’s going to lead us along the same path he trod, which was a hard-working path all the way Calvary. Jesus is speaking, rather, to those who are working hard, who are striving to take responsibility for their own life, for the life of their loved ones, for society and the Church, who are pushing themselves in love to the limit. Jesus had told us once to pray to the Harvest Master, his Father, “to send LABORERS into his vineyard” (Mt 9:38), not BODIES into his vineyard. The way to salvation and the salvation of others in that vineyard is through responding to all his gifts with faith, love, fatigue and perspiration. It’s those who labor, and they alone, whom he promises to refresh.

* The second group of people whom Jesus is not calling is the proud, the arrogant, those who already think they know it all. He says in the Gospel, “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 little ones.” Those who are “wise and learned” in the their own eyes don’t capture what Jesus is revealing or value his invitation because they don’t think they need it. It’s only the “little ones,” those who are humble, those who know how much they need the Lord, who know the worth of what Jesus wants to give them. Jesus himself is “meek and humble of heart,” and in order to understand what he wants to reveal,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Saturday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Mass for Independence Day

Memorial of St. Elizabeth of Portugal and Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati

July 4, 2020

Amos 9:11-15, Ps 85, Mt 9:14-17

 

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

 

To following points were made in today’s homily: 

* Today as the United States marks its 244th birthday as a nation and we focus, on independence day, on freedom, not only on the historical liberation from King George III and the United Kingdom but on what our freedom is for, what Madison described as “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We Christians can deepen these aims of freedom expressed in the Declaration by the Biblical ideas of zoe (not just biological life but the higher life of the soul that Christ came to give us to the full), freedom (Christ has set us free precisely so that we might love God and others by his standard), and the pursuit of happiness (which is far more than pleasure, and meant to last far more than even 244 years, through the pursuit of holiness). The United States of America was formed with this deeper context in mind, to allow for the possibility of fulfilling it. But for that to be achieved, we need a revolutionary spirit in every generation, the courage of many of our founding fathers to be willing to risk their lives for this ideal, and to remember what so many of them remarked, that if we’re going to have a republic conceived in liberty remain, the citizens must use their liberty in a particular way, tied to responsibility. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people, as John Adams once wrote, and it is fit for no other. So today is a good today, helped by today’s readings, to ponder that reality.

* In today’s first reading, we finish a week-long prayerful examination of the Prophet Amos. He was sent by God from Tekoa south of Jerusalem in the Kingdom of Judah to prophesy in the Kingdom of Israel to the north about the rampant injustice taking place there, the infidelity of the professional priests and prophets, of businessmen, of average Joshuas and Miriams. Throughout the book Amos constantly points out the failure of the people to live justly. They were prosperous and had begun to live for money, marginalizing God, selling off needy people for goods, oppressing the poor, taking advantage of the helpless, men were using women for pleasure. They needed a deep conversion and Amos was unsparing. Many were frightened as a result. Today we get to the last five verses, which foretell the consolation that awaits if they turn back to the Lord and to justice and charity in their relations with others. Through Amos God promises mercy, to “raise up the fallen hut of David … and rebuild it as in the days of old.” He promises that “the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the vintager, him who sows the seed; the juice of grapes shall drip down the mountains, and all the hills shall run.” Those are incredible images, saying that people will not be able to plant or crush grapes fast enough and that there will be tremendous fruit and joy, like grapes running down a mountain.

* In the Gospel, we see how all of this would be fulfilled. Jesus uses two images to describe how his people need to receive and respond the fulfillment of Amos’ prophecies. The first image is that of a patch. He says no one sews a new patch on an old set of clothing, because the new patch when it shrinks will tear the old fabric. Jesus has come not to patch up the difficulties in Judaism, but rather to give us new clothing. He has come to clothe us in himself. He has come to give us a baptismal garment, which is the garment that the sons and the daughters of the wedding chamber — whom he refers shouldn’t be mourning but celebrating,