Fr. Roger J. Landry

Chapel of the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations, Manhattan

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

May 21, 2020

Acts 1:1-11, Ps 47, Eph 1:17-23, Mt 28:16-20

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.21.20_Mission_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today we can look at the three principal things that the Church normally marks on the Ascension, the three chief aspects of this mystery we ponder when we meditate on the second glorious mystery of the Rosary: the reality of heaven and Christ’s ascent there; his great commission to the apostles and the Church to continue his work; and the parting gift, the perpetual blessing he gives us to help us complete that mission and one day join him in heaven with many others, the Holy Spirit.

* The first reality we celebrate today is heaven. Today we celebrate the day Jesus returned home, to the place from which he came to earth to save us. He returned differently than he left, taking our human nature with him across the threshold of death into life. 43 days before his Ascension, during the Last Supper, Jesus told his closest followers about this connection between his ascension and our assumption. He said, “I am going to the Father, … the one who sent me” (Jn 14:17, 16:5). But he also said, “You have faith in God, have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” Heaven is the place where Christ has prepared for us so that we might rejoice with him forever. “He mounts his throne to shouts of joy” and he wants us to be able to experience that joy. Jesus often spoke about the great joy of heaven. He took his contemporaries’ most popular celebration — an eight-day sumptuous wedding banquet — and used it time and again to describe the unending joy of the eternal wedding banquet (Mt 22, Mt 25, Lk 12, Rev 19, Rev 21). St. Paul and Isaiah affirm that “eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor the human heart conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9; Is 64:4). This is what St. Paul prayed that the Ephesians realize in today’s second reading, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.” Heaven is our hope. Heaven is our glorious inheritance. But it’s a hope and an inheritance to which we’re “called.” To obtain it, we have to respond to that call, by following Christ the Lord all the way, through a life of faith in him, in imitation of the love with which he loved us. And that begins with our desire. Our focus on Jesus’ Ascension, not just today but every few days when we pray the Glorious mysteries of the Rosary, is meant to stoke our desire. We heard St. Paul tell us on Easter Sunday: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Col 3:1-2). We are called to seek the things that are above, to hunger for heaven, for God, for eternity. This Solemnity of the Ascension is meant to stoke our desire for Christ’s face, to see him with the eyes of our heart enlightened. We prayed in the opening prayer today that Christ’s Ascension may give us hope for our following him all the w...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

May 21, 2020

Acts 1:1-11, Ps 47, Eph 1:17-23, Mt 28:16-20

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.21.20_Homily_SVs_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today we can look at the three principal things that the Church normally marks on the Ascension, the three chief aspects of this mystery we ponder when we meditate on the second glorious mystery of the Rosary: the reality of heaven and Christ’s ascent there; his great commission to the apostles and the Church to continue his work; and the parting gift, the perpetual blessing he gives us to help us complete that mission and one day join him in heaven with many others, the Holy Spirit.

* The first reality we celebrate today is heaven. Today we celebrate the day Jesus returned home, to the place from which he came to earth to save us. He returned differently than he left, taking our human nature with him across the threshold of death into life. 43 days before his Ascension, during the Last Supper, Jesus told his closest followers about this connection between his ascension and our assumption. He said, “I am going to the Father, … the one who sent me” (Jn 14:17, 16:5). But he also said, “You have faith in God, have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” Heaven is the place where Christ has prepared for us so that we might rejoice with him forever. “He mounts his throne to shouts of joy” and he wants us to be able to experience that joy. Jesus often spoke about the great joy of heaven. He took his contemporaries’ most popular celebration — an eight-day sumptuous wedding banquet — and used it time and again to describe the unending joy of the eternal wedding banquet (Mt 22, Mt 25, Lk 12, Rev 19, Rev 21). St. Paul and Isaiah affirm that “eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor the human heart conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9; Is 64:4). This is what St. Paul prayed that the Ephesians realize in today’s second reading, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.” Heaven is our hope. Heaven is our glorious inheritance. But it’s a hope and an inheritance to which we’re “called.” To obtain it, we have to respond to that call, by following Christ the Lord all the way, through a life of faith in him, in imitation of the love with which he loved us. And that begins with our desire. Our focus on Jesus’ Ascension, not just today but every few days when we pray the Glorious mysteries of the Rosary, is meant to stoke our desire. We heard St. Paul tell us on Easter Sunday: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Col 3:1-2). We are called to seek the things that are above, to hunger for heaven, for God, for eternity. This Solemnity of the Ascension is meant to stoke our desire for Christ’s face, to see him with the eyes of our heart enlightened. We prayed in the opening prayer today that Christ’s Ascension may give us hope for our following him all the way: “For the Ascension of Christ your Son i...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter

Memorial of St. Bernardine of Siena

May 20, 2020

Acts 17:15.22-18:1, Ps 148, Jn 16:12-15

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.20.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today in the Gospel, on the eve of the “Decenarium of the Holy Spirit” that begins tomorrow on the Solemnity of the Ascension,  Jesus speaks to us about how the Holy Spirit “will guide you to all truth” because “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.” Kindergarteners are not taught calculus, quantum physics or advanced semiotics for a reason, because they cannot handle it yet. There are various steps in learning and assimilation and God knows how he has made us. The transition from natural religion to the Covenants of the Old Testament was an enormous step in the learning curve; from Old Testament to New Covenant another. But that learning continues. It continued for the Church at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, helping Christians not only to understand the significance of so much Jesus taught and did but to learn how to align their lives to that truth. That growth continues for each of us. The Holy Spirit continues to want to lead us to all truth, making explicit what was implicit in what has already been given and making vibrant what has remained dormant. Are we open to that continued formation?

* This is a  key work of the Holy Spirit. I’ve been reading St. John Paul II’s thoughts on the Holy Spirit over the course of the last few days — his encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem, his two years of catecheses during (1990-2) on the part of the Creed dedicated to  the Holy  Spirit, as well as his eight months of catecheses during the Year of the Holy Spirit (1998) — not only to mark his 100th birthday but also to prepare for the decenarium. In his encyclical, he uses the expression “Spirit of Truth” 42 times and how the Holy Spirit helps us to know, love and live the truth another 56, far more than any other expression. In a relativistic age, and one desperate for a New Evangelization, St. John Paul II focused on the mission of the Holy Spirit with regard to the truth more than under any other title. He wrote there, “It becomes clear that this ‘guiding into all the truth’ is connected not only with the scandal of the Cross, but also with everything that Christ ‘did and taught.’ For the mystery of Christ taken as a whole demands faith, since it is faith that adequately introduces man into the reality of the revealed mystery. The guiding into all the truth is therefore achieved in faith and through faith: and this is the work of the Spirit of truth and the result of his action in man. Here the Holy Spirit is to be man’s supreme guide and the light of the human spirit.”

* We see the Holy Spirit’s work in and through St. Paul as together with the Spirit the Apostle sought to lead the Athenians from what they knew into something much deeper. He began with their religiosity, surrounded by the statues of all the pagan gods, and praised their wisdom in the statue dedicated to the god they didn’t know. The statue to the Unknown god comes from the time of Epimenides who, according to Athenian legend, had been brought by them from Crete to rescue Athens after one of the leading families had murdered someone at the altar in the temple and soon the city began to suffer from political strife, a plague and various sorts of pollution, all of which the Athenians understood as a curse. Epimenides suggested that there might be a god unknown to them who would be willing to help At...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, New York, NY

Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter

May 19, 2020

Acts 16:22-34, Ps 138, Jn 16:5-11

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.19.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today in the Gospel Jesus says something truly shocking: “I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” Jesus is basically saying that if we have a choice between Him and the Holy Spirit, we should choose the latter. That’s how important he says the Holy Spirit is. The great joy is that we don’t have to have to choose between the two! But it is crucial for us to ponder the role of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life and to examine whether we’re docile to the help He wants to give us to live by faith.

* The reality, however, is that the Holy Spirit remains the “great unknown” not just in the life of so many of the Christian faithful. There’s a well-known scene in the Acts of the Apostles when St. Paul came to Ephesus and met some disciples. He asked, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” They responded, “We have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” Pope-emeritus Benedict, at World Youth Day in Australia in 2008, said, “The Holy Spirit has been in some ways the neglected person of the Blessed Trinity,” and confessed that it was only as a young priest teaching theology that he began not only to recognize the importance that the Holy Spirit should play in his life as a priest and professor but that he came to know him intimately. He added, “It is not enough to know the Spirit; we must welcome Him as the guide of our souls, as the ‘Teacher of the interior life’ who introduces us to the Mystery of the Trinity, because He alone can open us up to faith and allow us to live it each day to the full.” And we don’t have to be a member of the Charismatic Renewal to allow the Holy Spirit to become that teacher and guide. If we wish to understand the faith, if we wish to live it, if we wish to pass it on, we must allow ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit, even if we, like Joseph Ratzinger, are beginning as adults. For us, the “great unknown” must become the “great known,” the teacher, the leader, the consoler, the advocate.

* The importance of the Holy Spirit in our life as Catholics cannot be overstated. Jesus tells us this in today’s Gospel when he emphasized that it was good that he left us because in comparison with the gift of His presence, the gift of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our life is more important. That’s how crucial the Holy Spirit is meant to be in our life as disciples and apostles. Benedict told the Church down under, “The Holy Spirit is the highest gift of God to mankind,” something we proclaim in the Veni Creator Spiritus when we call the Holy Spirit, altissimi donum Dei. 

* As Catholics, especially as we prepare for the decenarium of the Holy Spirit that will begin on the Ascension in two days, we need to ask ourselves how should we be seeking to grow in our docility to this highest gift of God?

* Jesus in the Gospel today says about the Holy Spirit that “when he comes he will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation: sin, because they do not believe in me; righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me; condemnation, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.” We learn three very important works of the Holy Spirit, among others:

* He will convict the world with regard to sin. Sin, Jesus says, is ultimately the failure to believe in him.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Monday of the Sixth Week of Easter

Centenary of the Birth of St. John Paul II

May 18, 2020

Acts 16:11-15, Ps 149, Jn 15:26-16:4

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.18.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today in the Gospel Jesus describes how as Christians we are called to give joint witness together with the Holy Spirit. “When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father,” Jesus tells us in this discourse taken from the Last Supper, “he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.” In the first reading, we see that witness taking place for the first time in Europe, as Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke went to Philippi to proclaim where the Jews would assemble on the Sabbath when there was no Synagogue, down by the river. Even though obviously none of those evangelists had been with Jesus physically from the beginning of his public ministry, they had been with him in a far more meaningful way, with him, the Word, from before the foundation of the world. He had them in mind from before the foundation of the world to receive Him within and to bring Him to the ends of the earth. And he likewise has had each of us in mind from that same beginning.

* There’s a beautiful and theologically very rich expression that St. Luke uses to describe Lydia who had come to the river that day from Thyatira. St. Luke tells us that she was a dealer in purple cloth, which meant she was very wealthy, because purple was pretty much restricted to the imperial family since purple dye was so costly to obtain, needing to be harvested one drop at a time from an Aegean shellfish. Therefore, in Christianity, she would have had a lot to “lose” insofar as Christians were so generous in sacrificing what they had for the needs of the brothers and sisters. St. Luke tells us that “the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying.” Notice he didn’t say, “the Lord opened her ears to pay attention,” but her heart. It means she was interiorizing into the center of her personality what Paul was saying, that she was loving, willing and embracing what she was coming to know. The same Holy Spirit who was testifying with and through Paul and his companions was opening up her heart at the same time so that she would be able to receive the seed of the word on good soil and bear much fruit. We pray often in Psalm 95, “If today you hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts.” That’s the great danger, that we may just listen with our ears, but not open ourselves up for the Word to change who we are and all our aspirations. Lydia heard with great attentiveness of heart, literally her heart was “leaning” toward the word ready to move. That’s the way we should be listening to this morning’s readings as well. That’s the way we should be listening to the Lord in prayer. That’s the way we should be listening to Pope Francis and our Bishops exercising the Magisterium, following in the footsteps of St. Paul (and St. Peter).

* There’s a beautiful way this scene ends that shows the greatness of her attentiveness. She who was so hospitable to the Word of God immediately grasped the way Christians are always supposed to be hospitable to those who announce the Word, and how those who announce the Word also must have attentive hearts. So after she and her whole household were baptized — immediately, we presume, there at the river, much like the faith of the Ethiopian eunuch whom Philip the Deacon had baptized earlier in the Acts of the Apostles — she said to St.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A

May 17, 2020

Acts 8:5-8.14-17, Ps 66, 1 Pet 3:15-18, Jn 14:15-21

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.17.20_Homily_Longer_1.mp3

 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

* Today St. Peter tells us in the epistle, “Always be ready to give an explanation to any one who asks you for a reason for your hope.” The first Pope’s statement implies two things: that Catholics are supposed to be persons of hope; and that we need to be capable, ready and willing to give the reasons for our hope to anyone who asks us — at home, at work, at school, on the streets, in hospitals and nursing homes, in prisons, even, in concentration camps and Gulags — and to do so always. This proclamation of hope that is credible yet towering is an essential part of the Good News each of us is called to experience and proclaim.

* This Gospel of Hope is needed today as much as ever because so many people are living without hope. Many are led to fear and despair by things in the world, struggles in their family and work, the various forms of evil in the world, like governmental corruption, organized crime, the threat of terrorism, the ascendacy of maleficent regimes, or physical threats and cyberbullying, or declining health and rising pain, or the fear of failing those who are depending upon them, the truth getting out and being proven a fraud, or the incapacity of drugs, booze, porn and other escapes to anaesthetize one’s existential pain and assuage one’s loneliness. Even within the Church, there are other problems that make people forlorn: how many people are not practicing the faith and coming to worship God with us, the growing immorality in our culture, the Church closings due to the shortage of priestly vocations, the failure of many in positions of leadership to lead the types of holy, sacrificial lives that God and his people expect, not to mention the depravity that has been brought into the light over the course of the last couple of decades. All of these problems are beyond the personal frustrations we feel when we cannot seem to kick our addiction to sin and succeed in the struggle to live as God wants.

* Despite all of these challenges, despite everything that can cause our hope to wane, St. Peter calls us to be “always ready to give an explanation to any one asks you for a reason for your hope..” He himself faced so many of those challenges and more and hence his testimony is all the more powerful. His first words to Jesus were that he was a “sinful man” (Lk 5:8) prone to weakness (as he showed in the high priest’s courtyard [Mt 26:48]). He was surrounded by a bunch of other very ordinary men, sinners all, one of whom accounted Jesus less valuable than 30 silver pieces, and all of whom abandoned the Lord when he was arrested. Yet Jesus made them, respectively, the Rock (Mt 16:18) and the living stones (1 Pet 2:5) on whom he was to build his Church. If what Jesus was able to do through them isn’t a cause for hope, then what could be? Jesus gave them the mission to change world history. They easily could have despaired because that task far exceeded their human abilities, but they didn’t. They counted on the Lord to give them what they needed. That’s why Peter’s words to us today in his first letter are so important. The challenges we face are not greater than the challenges he faced. After Pentecost, he became a witness to hope and was always ready to give the explanation of his hope to others, doing it so powerfully that 3,000 people converted on that day. Today we ourselves need to focus within our Christian hearts on those reasons for Christian hope, so that we might likewise be able to take this Gospel to every c...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter (A), Vigil

May 16, 2020

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.16.20_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy 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.

* He will talk to us specifically about four promises, four blessings, four different ways he wants to relate to us. He said these words during the Last Supper, not only to prepare the apostles for his betrayal, crucifixion and death that would happen within hours, but even more for the post-Resurrection reality of the Church, which is why the Church always ponders these passages during the Easter Season.

* The first promise is “I will not leave you orphans.” Jesus will never abandon us. Sometimes we may feel abandoned, just like he felt on the Cross, but just as God the Father was with him so He will be with us. What a great consolation this is, something we pray that all of those in ICUs with Covid-19, or who otherwise feel alone, may experience. Notice the expression Jesus uses, however. He doesn’t say, “I will not leave you alone,” but rather, “I will not leave you orphans.” He will not allow us to be abandoned by Father and mother. He will speak to us later about how God the Father will remain with us and the following afternoon he will give us his Mother to be our own. In this month of May, dedicated to our Lady, how important it is for us to recognize that we’re not orphans, but to live ever more in communion with God the Father and with Mary our spiritual Mother, both of which are made possible by the work of Jesus, the Son of the Father and the son of Mary.

* The second promise is, “I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth,” whom he says “you know because he remains in you and will be with you.” We’re now beginning our remote preparation for Pentecost and Jesus will be speaking to us three weeks in a row about the work of the Holy Spirit in us. Today I will just mention one of the chief works of the Holy Spirit is to convince us we are beloved sons and daughters of God the Father. The Holy Spirit is poured into our hearts so that we might cry out, “Abba, Father!,” so that we might recognize the intimacy of a relationship with God as “dad.” The Holy Spirit will remain in us helping us to relate to God the Father, so that we may never feel we’re orphans.

* The third promise is, “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.” Jesus tells us that his resurrection will be our life — “I live and you will live,” he says — and that when he goes to be with the Father, to dwell in communion with the Father, he is bringing us with him, as members of his Mystical Body. This is a mind-blowing reality. Jesus will develop it more deeply on Holy Thursday in a passage we’ll hear next Sunday. But his mission is to bring us into the communion of persons who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to help us come alive through his resurrection and ascension, and to assist us to live in communion with God who entered our world to redeem us and make that communion possible.

* And the fourth promise is, “Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” We have been made by God, who is love, in his image and likeness,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter (A), Vigil

May 9, 2020

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.9.20_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The text on which the homily was based: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy 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.

* He will speak to us words that are relevant not only during the time of the coronavirus pandemic but always. “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” he tells us. “You have faith in God. Have faith also in me.” He wants to calm our hearts by assuring us that he is going to prepare a place for each of us in his Father’s house so that where he is, we also will be. He’s referring not merely to his desire to come back again and take us to be with him eternally. He’s also referring to the fact that, right now, he is going to prepare a place in the Father’s house for us, for our prayers, for our hopes, sorrows, joys. When he told the apostles, “Where I am going, you know the way,” meaning what he already told them three times, that he would be handed over to death and on the third day rise, Saint Thomas protested that the apostles neither knew Jesus’ destination or path. That’s when Jesus summarized everything, for them and us, in one of the most famous self-identifications Jesus ever gave us: “I am the way, and the truth and the life” and said that no one could come to the Father’s house except through him. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

* We’ve heard Jesus’ self-description as the Way, the Truth and the Life so many times that their revolutionary shock value is almost entirely lost on us, but to first century Jewish listeners, they would have heard Jesus saying that he was the full realization of their three deepest religious aspirations. Jews had been praying for centuries, “Teach me your way, O Lord” and Jesus was saying, “I am the way.” They had been imploring God, “Teach me your decrees” that “I may walk in your truth,” and Jesus was saying, “I am the Truth.” They had been begging, “Show me the path of life,” and Jesus was indicating, “I am the Life.” Jesus was saying that he was the personification of all their religious aspirations and the answer to so many of their most insistent prayers.

* But these aspirations were not exclusively Jewish. They point to the perennial needs that spring up in every human life. Many times we’re lost, we don’t know where to go, we’re wandering through a valley of darkness with no clear sense of direction. To all of us in those circumstances, Jesus says, “I am the Way.” There are many others who are stumped before life’s biggest questions, who are searching for answers and meaning, who don’t know what to believe, who don’t trust because they don’t know whom to trust. Jesus tells us, “I am the Truth.” “You have faith in God, have faith also in me.” And there are countless others who are struggling to have hope, who feel like they have having the marrow of existence sucked out of them, who are seeking happiness and human fulfillment sometimes in right places, sometimes in wrong. To them, Jesus responds, “I am the Life.”

* What does it mean to build our lives on Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life? Let’s take each of Jesus’ affirmations individually and see.

* Jesus says, “I am the Way.”

* Probably every single one of us has had the experience of being lost when we’re driving. We lose the satellite or cellphone signal for our GPS and don’t have a map. Jesus comes into our life and says, simply,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Easter (A), Vigil

May 2, 2020

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.2.20_LandryConCon_1.mp3

 

The text that guided the homily was: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy 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.

* The Fourth Sunday of Easter each year is called Good Shepherd Sunday, because on this day the Church focuses on the tenth Chapter of the Gospel of St. John in which Jesus reveals the relationship he has with each of his faithful followers. Jesus says about himself: “I am the Good Shepherd.” And we, his faithful followers, with the some of the most famous words God has ever inspired, “The Lord is my shepherd. I want, I lack, for nothing!” We mark this truth in the heart of the Easter Season each year, because it is the heart of our Easter joy: with the Risen Lord Jesus as our Shepherd, we truly have it all!

* But it’s key for us to believe and live by those famous words of the Responsorial Psalm. By them, we publicly confess as Catholics that our treasure is Jesus, that if we have him, but don’t have everything else in the world, we still recognize how rich we are. One of the prayers I’ve been saying for 25 years is St. Ignatius of Loyola’s famous Suscipe, which he prayed, taught his Jesuits like Pope Francis to pray and which they have helped the whole world learn how to say, too. “Take, Lord,” we pray with St. Ignatius, “and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my entire will. All I have and call my own. Whatever I have or hold, you have given me. I return it all to you and surrender it wholly to be governed by your will. Give me only your love and your grace, which are enough for me and I ask for nothing more.” This prayer teaches us something very important about being a good sheep of the Good Shepherd: we recognize that Jesus’ love and grace are enough for us. In the midst of a consumerist society, in which we’re bombarded with advertisements that pretend that we’ll be happy only if we obtain what they’re selling, that we’ll be fulfilled only if we have money and houses, fame and fortune, power and position, we focus instead on the Good Shepherd’s love and grace. We confess that what Jesus provides is far more fundamental to happiness in this world and is absolutely essential to eternal felicity with him in the eternal sheepfold.

* Throughout the Good Shepherd discourse Jesus gives us in the tenth Chapter of St. John, roughly a different of third of which we get each year, Jesus reveals that he does for us essentially three things. For us to be good sheep of the Good Shepherd, we need to allow him to shepherd us in these three ways.

* First, Jesus the Good Shepherd feeds his flock — He “prepares a table for us,” as we pray in today’s Psalm. Jesus feeds us in every way. He feeds us materially each day as he “gives us today our daily bread” (Mt 6:11). He feeds our souls with his word, for “not on bread alone does man live, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). He feeds us, ultimately, on his own body and blood in the Eucharist, the food of everlasting life. Good sheep are not only grateful for this three-fold nutrition, but hunger for it!

* Second, Jesus the Good Shepherd guides his flock — Jesus “leads us in right paths for [his] names’ sake.” He leads us “besides the refreshing waters” of baptism. He guides us toward the “verdant pastures” of heaven. He tells us he “calls his own sheep by name and he leads them ...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Third Sunday of Easter (A), Vigil

April 25, 2020

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/4.25.20_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy 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. It’s based on one of the most famous dialogues he has in Sacred Scripture, with the disciples on the Road to Emmaus on the night he rose from the dead.

* The first was when Jesus met the two disciples along the seven-mile path downhill from Jerusalem to Emmaus. That the two disciples were heading away from Jerusalem was not just an historical fact, but also a symbol of the fact that they were heading away from the faith that Jerusalem symbolizes. Their hearts had just been put in a blender. They had believed in Jesus, deeming him to be the long-awaited Messiah. Yet their hopes were crushed when they saw him mangled and executed by the Romans. Earlier that day, women had said that his tomb was empty and that they had seen a vision of angels saying he had arisen, but they were obviously reluctant to believe again and have their hopes crushed anew. Jesus met them along the way — he met them where they were at, with all their questions and doubts — but their sadness, and likely some undescribed changes in Jesus’ resurrected body, prevented them from recognizing him. This seeming stranger stuck his nose into the middle of their conversation and asked, “What are you talking about?” They thought he had no idea! So they told him about Jesus, a “prophet mighty in deed and word,” who they thought might be the one to “redeem Israel,” but who was betrayed and crucified.” But then the incognito Jesus upbraided them, called them “foolish and slow of heart to believe” and, starting with Moses and all the prophets, interpreted for them all the passages of Sacred Scripture that referred to why the Messiah “had to suffer these things to enter into his glory.” Doubtless he would have mentioned Isaac’s carrying the wood for the sacrifice on his shoulders. He would have mentioned Moses’ through the Passover leading the people through the Red Sea and desert into the promised land. He would have mentioned how Isaiah had given the prophecy of the Suffering Servant, how the Book of Wisdom described that the just man would be beset by evil doers, how the Psalms had foretold so many details of the crucifixion, how Jonah prophesied his spending three days in the belly of the earth, and so much more. As he was talking, the light of truth began to penetrate the great darkness of their sadness. Their hearts began to BURN as he spoke to them along the way, even though they still didn’t recognize who he was. They didn’t want this to end. Hence they invited this Wayfarer into their home: “Stay with us!,” they said. Jesus never wants to force himself on us. He wants to be invited. And they did.

* But Jesus had something far greater in mind than merely staying WITH them. That’s why when he was at table, “he took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them.” Then he seemed to vanish from their midst. But he hadn’t vanished at all, because, as those four verbs indicate to us, he had celebrated with them the Eucharist, as he had with his apostles three nights earlier in the Upper Room. They could no longer see Jesus with their eyes, but Jesus remained with them under the appearances of the Eucharist. The Lord did not want merely to stay WITH them, but to stay IN them.

* Then,