Catholic Preaching

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.

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.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

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

Feast of St. Henry

July 13, 2020

Is 1:10-17, Ps 50, Mt 10:34-11:1

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Yesterday we pondered Jesus’ Parable of the Sower, Seed and Soil. Jesus stressed that he wished us all to receive his words and work of salvation and sanctification on good soil, embracing it with faith and understanding, allowing that seed to grow and cooperating with God in bringing about abundant fruit. That’s a very helpful starting point to examine the word that Jesus wants to inseminate in the good soil of our heart today.

* Jesus concludes his instructions to the Twelve about the mission he was entrusting to them and to us. We’ve already covered what they were to say, how they were supposed to accompany those words with deeds of healing, exorcism, and resurrection that would manifest God’s kingdom, and how they were to package that message in word and witness by the way they themselves gave evidence to God’s providence by their traveling without money sack or extra tunics, to his peace, love and joy by the way they would respond to each other, to his mercy by not holding grudges and taking them with them to the next town. Today, among several final points he makes, he focuses on one that has pervaded all of these instructions and on which we really should stop to ponder, because it is absolutely at the root of our faith, as Jesus described in the Parable of the Sower and the Seed. It’s the theme of rejection and welcome.

* The theme of rejection has been prevalent already in Jesus’ instructions. He had mentioned that there would be peaceful people who would receive the greeting of peace and others who wouldn’t. He had mentioned the need to wipe the dust of rejection off of our feet. He had mentioned being dragged before religious and civil rulers and being hated by all because of his name. But today he talks about one of the hardest forms of rejection of all: by our own family members. Even though he is the long-awaited Prince of Peace prophesied by Isaiah, even though in the Beatitudes he would bless the peacemakers as children of God and he as the Son of God would be the foremost example, even though during the Last Supper he would say, “My peace I leave you; my peace I give you,” he says today, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.” And then he explicates how that division would hit our families: “For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s enemies will be those of his household.” This is not because Jesus wants to cause that division, but because that division may ensue once we prioritize him over family members. Many will get jealous. It’s not Jesus himself who divides, but sinful preferences that divide. But this division is itself can be salvific. First it will help us to solidify our choice of Jesus through choosing him and accepting this Cross. He says, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” This familial suffering is a means by which we can become more united with Christ, the pearl of great price, because we might not appreciate him unless we have to choose him over all of the other good and beautiful pearls in our collection combined. And that will also be perhaps the greatest preaching of the Gospel to our family members, when we show them that Jesus is someone worth that choice,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

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

Feast of St. Henry

July 13, 2020

Is 1:10-17, Ps 50, Mt 10:34-11:1

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Yesterday we pondered Jesus’ Parable of the Sower, Seed and Soil. Jesus stressed that he wished us all to receive his words and work of salvation and sanctification on good soil, embracing it with faith and understanding, allowing that seed to grow and cooperating with God in bringing about abundant fruit. That’s a very helpful starting point to examine the word that Jesus wants to inseminate in the good soil of our heart today.

* Jesus concludes his instructions to the Twelve about the mission he was entrusting to them and to us. We’ve already covered what they were to say, how they were supposed to accompany those words with deeds of healing, exorcism, and resurrection that would manifest God’s kingdom, and how they were to package that message in word and witness by the way they themselves gave evidence to God’s providence by their traveling without money sack or extra tunics, to his peace, love and joy by the way they would respond to each other, to his mercy by not holding grudges and taking them with them to the next town. Today, among several final points he makes, he focuses on one that has pervaded all of these instructions and on which we really should stop to ponder, because it is absolutely at the root of our faith, as Jesus described in the Parable of the Sower and the Seed. It’s the theme of rejection and welcome.

* The theme of rejection has been prevalent already in Jesus’ instructions. He had mentioned that there would be peaceful people who would receive the greeting of peace and others who wouldn’t. He had mentioned the need to wipe the dust of rejection off of our feet. He had mentioned being dragged before religious and civil rulers and being hated by all because of his name. But today he talks about one of the hardest forms of rejection of all: by our own family members. Even though he is the long-awaited Prince of Peace prophesied by Isaiah, even though in the Beatitudes he would bless the peacemakers as children of God and he as the Son of God would be the foremost example, even though during the Last Supper he would say, “My peace I leave you; my peace I give you,” he says today, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.” And then he explicates how that division would hit our families: “For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s enemies will be those of his household.” This is not because Jesus wants to cause that division, but because that division may ensue once we prioritize him over family members. Many will get jealous. It’s not Jesus himself who divides, but sinful preferences that divide. But this division is itself can be salvific. First it will help us to solidify our choice of Jesus through choosing him and accepting this Cross. He says, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” This familial suffering is a means by which we can become more united with Christ, the pearl of great price, because we might not appreciate him unless we have to choose him over all of the other good and beautiful pearls in our collection combined. And that will also be perhaps the greatest preaching of the Gospel to our family members, when we show them that Jesus is someone worth that choice,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) (Vigil)

July 11, 2020

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/7.11.20_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.

* Why among the first apostles did eleven become great saints and one become the most notorious traitor of all time? Why among the students of a poor, inner city school will some kids from down-and-out circumstances go on to become famous surgeons and others end up in jail? Why do some children go on to become great athletes while others with the same coaches and even greater physical coordination and endowments never make it? One of the most basic reasons is because some people are more receptive and more responsive to coaching, to education and to grace.

* This is an important lesson for us all to grasp and it will help us to understand better what Jesus will teaching us on Sunday as he gives us one of his most important parables, the Parable of the Sower and the Seed. Jesus teaches us us crucial lessons about how to be a more fruitful disciple and a more effective evangelist, how to receive God’s grace and how to live in accordance with it. At the end of the Parable, Jesus says, “Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear!,” which is the ancient way of saying, “Pay attention!.” By means of the Parable, Jesus is going to help us to take a soil sample of our hearts, to help determine how well we pay attention, how much we receive and respond to him, what he teaches, and all that he seeks to do in our life.

* To understand what he says, we first need to grasp a little about ancient farming techniques. Sowers would scatter seed on long thin plots before any soil had been turned over. The seed would land on four different types of earth. The first is the hardened land between plots that would serve as the paths on which people would walk. They were the ancient sidewalks and no seed could penetrate. The second is very thin “rocky” soil that would have thick layers of limestone a few inches underneath the surface. Here the seeds take and quickly germinate because the water would be retained within the few inches of soil. Because the roots couldn’t penetrate the stone, however, the sprouts would not be able to last for long, quickly dehydrating and withering as the rising sun grew in intensity. The third terrain Jesus describes as “thorny” soil, which is basically good earth that could bear a lot of fruit if it weren’t covered with thornbushes and weeds that exhaust the nutriets of the soil so that good seed can’t grow. And the last type is good soil that Jesus describes bears much fruit.

* Just as a sower would scatter seed over all four types of earth, so Jesus scatters his word, his grace, his saving deeds over all four kinds of people represented by the respective soil samples. We see all four soil types among his first listeners. We saw in many of the scribes and Pharisees the hardened soil that totally resisted Jesus’ words and the testimony of his miracles, closing their ears and their hearts to his message and actually accusing him of working his indisputable miracles not by God’s power but by the devil. The evil one, as Jesus mentions in the Parable, would come to snatch the seed away before it could ever get planted. We see the rocky or superficial soil in the people for whom Jesus worked the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish. They listened to Jesus for hours, they even followed him after the miracle along the entire upper li...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Saturday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of St. Benedict

July 11, 2020

Gen 49:29-32.50:15-26, Ps 105, Mt 10:24-33

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today on this Feast of St. Benedict, the great founder of western monasticism and one of the greatest saints who ever lived, it’s key for us to grasp what he did founding the Benedictine Order, as he said in his famous Rule, as a “school of the Lord’s service.” Jesus told us in the Gospel, “No disciple is above his teacher. … It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher,” and St. Benedict sought to become like his Master and to train others to enter that same school of the Lord’s service. St. Benedict and his Benedictine sons and daughters seek to serve the Lord in their prayer, especially their common liturgical prayer that he called the “opus Dei,” the work of God. They seek to serve the Lord in their work. Prior to St. Benedict’s revolution, manual work, like working the fields, being in shops, even copying manuscripts, were considered things done by slaves. The Benedictines sought to do it as slaves of the Lord, not in a slavish way, but learning from the Master in the school of service how to do it well. They also sought to serve the Lord in their study, zealously learning from the Master in such a way that they could not only live it but pass on as of the first important what they themselves received. Ora et labora et studium: They served the Lord and learned from him in this three course classroom of prayer, work, and study. Those are the three principle courses in the life of every Christian and in all of those activities God comes first. Two of the most celebrated phrases in the famous Rule of St. Benedict that formed countless monks and nuns and lay oblates in the “school of divine service” were about the preference that needs to be given to God. Ergo nihil operi Dei praeponant, St. Benedict says in Chapter 43: “Prefer nothing to the Work of God,” by which he means their common prayer; and Christo omnimo nihil præponant, which he says at the very end (Chapter 72): “Prefer nothing whatsoever to Christ.” These were part of the opening prayer of the Mass, when we besought, “O God, who made the Abbot Saint Benedict an outstanding master in the school of divine service, grant, we pray, that, putting nothing before love of you, we may hasten with a loving heart in the way of your commands.”  The whole point of the Christian life is to put God first, above family members, friends, even our own life, which is something St. Benedict did and trained his monks to do. Once we do, we hasten to obey him with a loving heart:  in prayer we put God first, in our work we seek to offer him the sacrifice of Abel, and in our study we come on fire for him and for the truth that he has revealed in so many settings.

* Today in the Gospel, Jesus continues his instructions to the Twelve about the mission he was giving them to complete his own. It is the Master’s own school of divine service. It’s all meant to help them to go out in the person of Christ, with his words, with his authority, and even with his sufferings, and to put nothing before him. Jesus lets the apostles know that if they’ve insulted him and tried to ascribe his work to the devil, they will do the same to the Apostles and us. But he reiterates to us not to be afraid, but to speak in the light what Jesus says in the darkness, to proclaim on the housetops what he whispers. He reminds us that we have nothing to fear from those who will seek to kill our bodies but can’t harm our souls. This is what gave the apostles and the martyrs the courage to proclaim the Gospel despite all the vicissitudes they encountered,