Catholic Preaching

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Monday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

June 15, 2020

1 Kings 21:1-16, Ps 5, Mt 5:38-42

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.15.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* At first glance, today’s readings are bound to make us physically and spiritually nauseous. In the first reading, we encounter the story of Naboth, whose vineyard Ahab, the king of Samaria, coveted. Ahab told Naboth, “Give me your vineyard to be my vegetable garden, since it is close by, next to my house. I will give you a better vineyard in exchange, or, if you prefer, I will give you its value in money.” But Naboth refused, not because of selfishness, but because he believed that it was God who had given that land to him and his family to be treasured almost as a covenantal relationship: “The Lord forbid that I should give you my ancestral heritage.”  Ahab was so disturbed and angry he lay down on his bed and refused to eat. When his wife Jezebel asked why he wasn’t eating and found out the reason, she set herself on a plan of calculated evil to obtain the vineyard, writing letters in the king’s name and with his seal calling on the “elders and nobles” to secure two scoundrels to frame Naboth for the capital crime of having “cursed God and king.” The nobles went along with this abomination, Naboth was stoned to death, and Jezebel told her husband to go and acquire Naboth’s familial vineyard. The whole scene points to the revolting ugliness of wickedness and corruption, of those in positions of authority abusing their offices to trample on those, especially the worldly insignificant, who impede their insatiable will to have more power, popularity and property.

* And yet, when we read the first reading through the prism of the Gospel, it seems at first glance that Jesus is calling us not to resist this corruption and injustice but to enable it. Jesus tells us, “Offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.” It would appear that Jesus is saying, when an evil corrupt King asks you for your ancestral land, give it to him, and give him your house, and your clothes and everything else besides. That’s certainly the way some people have misinterpreted this Gospel passage, but that’s not what Jesus is affirming. Jesus’ message is highly challenging all the same — he’s calling us to live by his standards, to have our righteousness surpass that of the Scribes and Pharisees as we heard last week, to go beyond a pagan sense of justice and love for those who love us, as we’ll hear tomorrow —  but he’s not telling us to become a punching bag or a defenseless victim before those who would seek to harm us or others.

* To grasp Jesus’ message, we first need to see the way he introduces it. He cites the “law of talion,” something that goes back to the Hammurabi Code of the 23rd century BC, but that was incorporated into the Mosaic law: “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” This was an ancient limit on vengeance, against a tribal notion of vendetta, that would prevent the escalation of an offense. Prior to this principle becoming popular, if someone killed your ox, your whole family would have a vendetta against that person’s whole family and there was a risk that much worse would be done and for generations. It put a limit to revenge. Jesus, however,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Chapel of the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See, Manhattan

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), Year A

June 14, 2020

Deut 8:2-3.14-16, Ps 147, 1 Cor 10:16-17, Jn 6:51-58

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.14.20_HSM_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

* This year’s celebration of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord is particularly special because of the absence of Mass in many places — here in New York City still — due to coronavirus restrictions. In today’s first reading, we see what happened with the Israelites in the desert. Moses told them that God “let you be afflicted with hunger and then fed you with manna … in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes from the mouth the Lord.” One of the goods that God doubtless wants to bring out of this time of affliction is to help people hunger more  for the Holy Eucharist so that they may recognize that God the Father seeks to feed them with the “True Manna,” so that they may learn that they don’t live by bread alone or even by the words of God but by the “living Bread come down from heaven,” Jesus himself. That’s why this Corpus Christi has to be special, and ought to be lived with renewed hunger, amazement, and gratitude.

* This is a feast especially desired by the Lord, who revealed his will in two different stages in the 1200s. He desired that our faith in the Eucharist would pass from our head, to our heart to our knees, that our response to him in this gift would go from theology to devotion, that this day would help us to grow from knowledge of his real presence to passionate love. 800 years ago, people knew the truth of Jesus’ real presence in the Eucharist intellectually but for many it really didn’t impact their life. Many did not prioritize the Mass. Of those who did, many came as a duty rather than a thing of love. Jesus wanted us to love him back in the Eucharist. He did this not because he’s hurting for attention, or narcissistic, but precisely because he loves us. He wants us to receive as much as we possibly can from the gift of himself in the Eucharist, not for his sake, but for ours.

* The first intervention of Jesus in asking for this Feast occurred in the early part of the century, when the Lord Jesus began to appear to a contemplative nun in Belgium, St. Juliana of Mont Cornillon (1193-1258). Beginning from the time she was 15 in 1208, a moon would appear to her throughout the day with a black band in it. She wondered what it meant and the Lord Jesus appeared to her in a dream and mentioned that the moon referred to the liturgical year and the black band to the fact that the liturgical year lacked one thing, a day in honor of His Body and Blood in the Eucharist. Up until that point, the Church had marked the institution of the Eucharist each year on Holy Thursday, when the Lord gave the Apostles His Body and Blood for the first time and instituted the priesthood so that through His priests, that Body and Blood might be multiplied to every land in every age. But on Holy Thursday, the focus of Christians is divided. Yes, we think about the Eucharist, but we also ponder the imminent betrayal that will occur after the Last Supper. Even the Gospel of the Mass of the Last Supper does not focus on the Eucharist, but rather on the Lord’s washing His Apostles’ feet and commissioning them to do the same in loving, humble service of others. Jesus was saying that missing from the liturgical calendar was a feast specifically dedicated to rejoicing in the incredible gift of the Eucharist and thanking God for it.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for Corpus Christi (A), Vigil

June 13, 2020

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.13.20_Landry_ConCon_2.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 tomorrow on Corpus Christi.

* If there’s ever a year in which we need the feast celebrating the Body and Blood of the Lord it’s this year.

* So many faithful have gone without the Eucharist for months. Still here in New York, faithful cannot attend either Sunday or daily Mass. We have tried to do the best we can with virtual Masses and spiritual communions, but it’s obviously not the same.

* One of the goods that have come from this pandemic has been many now are hungering more for the Eucharist, for the Mass. That hunger justifies putting up with the many inconveniences of going to Mass with masks, sitting in designated areas, constantly sanitizing hands and pews and the rest. That hunger should justify so much.

* There’s a beautiful phrase in the Sequence before the Gospel for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi in which St. Thomas Aquinas says, “Quantum potes, tantum aude.” Dare to do all you can. Go overboard with love. This is a year in which we need to. In most places we won’t be able to have Corpus Christi processions, or lengthy periods of communal adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But perhaps we can do the same thing most of us have been doing: doing all we can to spread love of the Lord via social media, phone calls, letters. I’d like to ask you to think about posting something on your Twitter, Facebook or Instagram accounts about the Eucharist today and how grateful you are for this gift. The reason is because nothing we do could possibly be adequate to the gift.

* In the consequential conversation in the Gospel today, Jesus’ disciples as well as critics grumble after he tells them that he is the living bread that came down from heaven and whoever eats that bread, his flesh for the life of the world, will live forever. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?,” they ask aloud. And Jesus doubles down: Unless you gnaw on the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you do not have life within you. … Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”

* They would go on to say, “This teaching is hard who can endure it,” and many disciples left. They were right in that it was a very hard teaching. To them it sounded like cannibalism. Jews couldn’t even touch blood without becoming ritually impure and Jesus was telling them they needed to drink his blood. Sometimes I think the reason why some Catholics, like some of our fellow Christians, don’t find this teaching hard is because they think Jesus is talking symbolically. He’s not. He stresses his flesh is real food and his blood real drink.

* We need to approach this difficult reality with faith. After many of the disciples had left, Jesus turned to the 12 and asked if they wanted to leave. That’s when Peter said, “Lord to whom shall we go. You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the holy one of God.” Translate. Last Supper. Thomas: credo quidquid dixit…

* The teaching is hard, but that’s what’s at the origin of this feast. Peter of Prague. First Corpus Christi.

* This teaching is hard we believe whatever Jesus has said and are called to base our life o...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Friday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

June 12, 2020

1 Kings 19:9.11-16, Ps 27, Mt 5:27-32

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.12.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily:

* Today Jesus continues to sketch out for us how to live as his disciples, in communion with him who fulfills the law and seeks to help us fulfill the law by loving God with all we are and have and loving our neighbor as he loves us, by interiorizing the law of the Holy Spirit written on our hearts, so that our holiness might surpass that of the virtuous pagans and the scribes and the Pharisees and attain to the full stature of the holiness of Christ in a human being. Yesterday Jesus did so with regard to the fifth commandment. Today he will do so with regard to the sixth. But to understand what he will teach more deeply, let’s begin with the Psalm.

* In the Responsorial Psalm, we pray, “I long to see your face, O Lord,” and that points to the desire that leads to vision that then transforms a life. We see two types of longing to see God in the readings today. The first is to see the Lord in prayer, which is the journey on which God led the Prophet Elijah in the first reading. Elijah, on Mt. Horeb, didn’t find God in the various manifestations that Moses did when he was at the top of the mountain — in the howling wind, the earthquakes or the fire of a burning bush — but in the whisper of a gentle breeze. God doesn’t always respond according to our expectations in granting the desires he plants within us to see Him. He can sometimes come in the least suspecting ways. But when we long to see his face, we’ll be able to find that face speaking to us even in something small like a gentle breeze.

* In the Gospel, we see that longing and vision on display in Jesus’ words about adultery of the heart. He tells us that someone who has looked on a woman with lust has committed in his heart the sin of adultery. Lust begins with an unholy longing in the heart that passes to what St. John Paul II called a type of porno-vision, when we seek to appropriate, possess, objectify, rather than love, serve and die for the one beheld. Lust changes the entire intentionality of a human person, St. John Paul II said, from a self-giver to a taker, from someone called to lay down his life out of love for others to someone who sacrifices someone else for his own pleasures. The righteousness Jesus wants of us begins with chaste longings and chaste looking, something that views the person as a whole, rather than objectifying and abstracting the person’s values through the prism of meeting one’s desire or needs. Chastity, as John Paul II taught in his Theology of the Body, is linked to purity and to piety: purity allows us to “see God” (Mt 5:6) in others rather than make that person an idol, or idolize our own urges; piety allows us to reverence the God we see. Rather than the adulterous desiring and looking that Jesus says we should brutally root out of our life — with graphic language about plucking out eyes and chopping off hands — Jesus wants us to replace it with holy longing and vision that leads to a genuine love, which often involves forsaking human romantic love according to the other person’s or to one’s own situation in life. Adulterous desires, looks and actions are actually similarly adulterous in terms of our spousal Covenant with God, and God’s righteousness — and the help of the Holy Spirit — call us to a different way of life.

* This longing to see God in prayer, in life, and in others is the essence of the consecrated life. The motto of the consecrated life is “Faciem tuam, Domine,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Memorial of St. Barnabas

June 11, 2020

Acts 11:21-26. 13:1-3, Ps 98, Mt 5:20-26

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.11.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily:

Today in the Gospel, Jesus tells us something that should startle us, especially early in the morning: “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.” That’s a very tall order.  The Scribes were the experts of Sacred Scripture in its every detail. They consecrated their whole life to knowing the Word of God. The Pharisees were the ones who sought to live the Word of God expounded by the Scribes to the letter. Many of the Scribes were Pharisees and vice versa. They prayed three times a day. The fasted not just the one time prescribed per year but twice a week. They tithed not only the various items that God had instructed but the tithed their whole income. By worldly, even by classically religious standards, their righteousness seemed to be almost unsurpassable. But they were missing something huge. Their righteousness was fundamentally based on their own efforts, their own study, their own will-power, their own sacrifices. It also featured an extrinsic understanding of being right with God: as long as they did the right things, everything was fine with God. As the converted Pharisee St. Paul would once say back to them, they thought that they were saved by their own works of the law, by their own external adhesion to the Mosaic law, and not by God, not by a faith-filled living relationship with God.

When Jesus calls us to surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees, he was not fundamentally calling us to surpass them in memorizing the New Testament along with the Old, in praying four times a day instead of three, in fasting three times a week instead of two, in giving twenty percent of all we have back to God instead of ten. He’s calling us, rather, to three things: first, to have his own relationship to the law in fulfilling the law; second, to grasp that it is all about loving God with everything we have and loving our neighbor as Christ has loved us (which is why we have today’s Alleluia verse, to help us remember this); and to interiorize the law so that our heart is changed, not just our outward behavior. He’s calling us to allow the Word of God, Love incarnate, to become enfleshed within. He’s summoning us to permit God to give us a new heart, to place his law within us as he pours Himself, the Holy Spirit, into our hearts. God had told us through the Prophet Jeremiah that one day he would write his law in our hearts, and that’s precisely what Jesus came to do. That’s what the Holy Spirit seeks to accomplish.

Today Jesus begins a series of powerful applications of what this looks like, because these are things on which everyone needs to surpass the Scribes and the Pharisees. The first is with regard to the fifth commandment. The Lord says, “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.” Jesus wants to transform the way we relate to others so that we will love them as he has loved us. It’s not enough merely not to kill others. He doesn’t want us to insult them. He doesn’t want us to hate them. Jesus wants to teach us to love those whom others would be tempted even to murder, to love those who make us angry, to love those who are fools.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Wednesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of St. Landry, Bishop of Paris (d. 660)

June 10, 2020

1 Kings 18:20-39, Ps 16, Mt 5:17-19

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.10.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* We continue today with the third of 16 installments of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount at daily Mass, which will continue to nourish us for nearly three weeks. After proclaiming the Beatitudes and our vocation to be salt of the earth and light of the world, today Jesus speaks to us about how he has come to fulfill the law and how we will become great in his kingdom through participation in that fulfillment and helping others to do so. While Jesus wasn’t going to let the smallest part of a letter pass away, he also wasn’t going to get us to focus first on the smallest part of the letter — as many of his contemporaries did — but on the big, bold headlines that oriented every letter and every part of the letter: how God’s law is all about loving God with all we are and have, and loving our neighbor as totally as God has loved us. That’s what the law is and Jesus was coming to fulfill it.

* Because of Jesus’ being the incarnate fulfillment of the law of God, he said that the greatest in his kingdom would be the one who would obey the law and teach others to do the same. The greatest would be the one who loved God and neighbor as fully as he or she could and trained others to love God and neighbor with similar wholehearted abandon. The law of God, God’s holy word, is something that must be received as a word to be lived. It’s the word of eternal life.

* Elijah was someone who obeyed God and taught others to do the same. He obeyed when God called him. He obeyed when God instructed him to journey through the desert. His whole prophetic life was meant to help others to learn how to obey God with all one’s heart, mind, soul and strength. But Elijah, generally considered the greatest of all of the Old Testament prophets (unless Moses is considered a prophet), is not known for his prophetic writings or speeches. He’s known for his prophetic actions. He taught by unforgettable gestures. Today we see one. People were “straddling the issue” as whether to obey God or obey their own impulses through the worship of Ba’al. He told them it was time to decide. And today we have one of the great scenes and illustrative miracles of the Old Testament. With faith in the power of God, he set up a test to demonstrate the falsity of the Ba’al and the truth of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel. He bathed the sacrifice in twelve big jars of water that needed to be taken from the stream at the bottom of the mountain on which the sacrificial duel was taking place. But he could have put the sacrifice at the bottom of the Mediterranean. That was nothing compared to God’s power. And we see what God did in response to Elijah’s prayer and proclaiming of the Gospel through deeds: “The Lord’s fire came down and consumed the burnt offering, wood, stones, and dust, and it lapped up the water in the trench.” It consumed everything. And the people came to believe.

* Today we celebrate the Memorial of another who became great by seeking to fulfill the law of two fold charity and helping others to receive, reciprocate and imitate Christ’s love: St. Landry, Bishop of Paris from 650-660. Few Americans — outside Louisiana, where there is a whole county (called a parish) named after him and a huge Church in Opelousas where I celebrated my tenth Mass a week or so after my ordination — have a devotion to him,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Tuesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of St. Ephrem, Deacon and Doctor of the Church

June 9, 2020

1 Kings 17:7-16, Ps 4, Mt 5:13-16

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.9.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today we continue with three weeks of prayer about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which sketches out for us the way to live as Christians. Today we come to a dual vocation he announces for us: as salt and light. For me it’s very intriguing that Jesus calls his disciples “salt of the earth” and “light of the world” at the beginning of his public ministry. At this point they were “barely” his disciples. It points to something, I think, very powerful. That almost by nature we’re called to be salt and light. Human beings are supposed to exhibit the properties of salt and light. Christians, true disciples of Jesus, should live these identities and carry out these missions all the more. Let’s see how.

* In the ancient world, salt had three purposes. The first was as a preservative. There was no refrigeration in ancient Palestine and so to preserve meat or fish from corruption, they covered it with salt. This points to how Christ came into our world in order to prevent our corruption and has sent us out to help others from going bad. The second purpose was as a fire starter. There was no lighter fluid or starter wood for fires in the ancient world. What they’d do is take dung and mix it with salt and light these salted dung pellets on fire. Alone, dung wouldn’t ignite, but the salt would get the whole thing started and once the dung was lit, it could burn hot for a long time. (One of the things I’ve learned from my work at the UN is that in some poorer regions of the world, dung remains used as fuel). In a similar way, Christ has come into the world in order to light a fire on earth and longs for it to be enkindled in us so that he can send us out to light the world on fire. Christians are supposed to be a fire starter. The third function was what we still use salt for today, to give flavor. A little bit of salt can make a big difference between tasty or bland food. In a similar way, Christ came to give meaning to all experiences, no matter how bland or bitter, giving us his life to the full and instilling in us his joy. Christians, marked in this way by Christ’s mercy, are meant to bring this flavor, personality, joy and life to the environments we inhabit.

* The second part of the vocation Jesus gives us today is to be the “light of the world.” There are two fundamental purposes for light. The first is to help people to see. The second is to warm. Christ has done both for us. He has come and mercifully taught us in such a way that we may walk as children of the light and be true children of the light. So the Christian life is supposed to be luminescent, like the lights on a landing strip at an airport on a foggy night that help planes land. In the midst of many walking in valleys of darkness, Christians are called to burn with the light so that others can follow us in following Jesus the Light of the World. Similarly, light gives off warmth, and Christ has come into the world to warm us by his love, to burn away whatever in us is frigid or tepid, so that we in turn may warm others by the fire of divine love. When we approach Jesus and when others approach us, we and they should feel like someone cold approaching a lit fireplace.

* Jesus points out, however, that it’s possible for salt to lose its flavor and light to be hidden. Rather than preventing corruption, starting a fire of faith,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Monday of the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time, Year II

June 8, 2020

1 Kings 17:1-6, Ps 121, Mt 5:1-12

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.8.20_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today, on Monday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time, we begin twelve weeks of focus at daily Mass on the Gospel of St. Matthew, which will accompany us through the end of August. As we always do, we begin with the most famous part of the Gospel of St. Matthew, which is likewise one of its most important passages: the Beatitudes. Especially at this time of crisis, Jesus’ words take on even greater importance. Pope Francis, in his 2018 apostolic exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate, told us, “Jesus explained with great simplicity what it means to be holy when he gave us the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes are like a Christian’s identity card. So if anyone asks: ‘What must one do to be a good Christian?,’ the answer is clear. We have to do, each in our own way, what Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount. In the Beatitudes, we find a portrait of the Master, which we are called to reflect in our daily lives.”

* How are we called to live, and help others to live, as Jesus would during these time?

* Jesus calls blessed the poor in spirit whose treasure is God. This is different from a spirit of entitlement, a spirit of privilege, a spirit of acquisitiveness.

* Jesus called blessed those who mourn, who are so compassionate that they weep over others misfortune, promising that they will be consoled. This is a time in which we’re called to mourn over the injustice blacks have had to endure, to mourn over the death of George Floyd and others killed by brutality of police officers who have ceased to protect and serve, to mourn over the diabolical destruction visited upon so many businesses, vehicles, and lives by those taking advantage of the protests to harm others or for personal gain.

* Jesus calls blessed those who are meek, who have a strength that they realize courageously they don’t have to put on display, to flex their muscles or show their force, to retaliate at every provocation. Jesus promises they will inherit the earth. They don’t have to seize it, or steal it.

* Jesus says we’re blessed when we hunger and thirst for righteousness, which first and foremost means being right with God, but also includes being right with others. Justice is a virtue for which we should strive. But we must strive for justice with justice, with holiness, remaining right with God. Jesus promises those who do will be satisfied.

* Jesus calls blessed the merciful, who don’t seek revenge, but who imitate him in asking God the Father to forgive those who do evil because they don’t know what they’re doing. These people, Jesus says, will receive mercy from God, because the measure with which we measure is measured back to us.

* Jesus calls blessed the pure of heart, because they will see God. The chief breakdown in the evil we have been witnessing is the failure to see God in others, a blindness that allows us to label and categorize others, to strip them of their divinely given dignity, to dehumanize them. A heart purified of sin loves others more and more with the love of God.

* Jesus calls blessed the peacemakers, those who seek to heal rather than expand or exploit divisions. They will be called children of God like Jesus, who came to reconcile all things in himself. During a time of crisis, real leaders are peacemakers, they try to bring God’s children together in a way united with justice.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Trinity Sunday, Year A

June 7, 2020

Ex 34:4-6.8-9, Dt 3, 2 Cor 13:11-13, Jn 3:16-18

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.7.20_Homily_1.mp3

The following text guided today’s homily: 

* These past two weeks have been very difficult. Jesus Christ, echoed 18 centuries later by Abraham Lincoln, told us that “a house divided against itself cannot stand” (Mk 3:25), and we have watched with horror as profound divisions and the sins that cause them have not only been exposed but exacerbated. The evil murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers reopened the gaping wound of racial division, dehumanization and injustice and that social lesion has been hemorrhaging non-stop since. The evil manipulation of protests against that injustice by anarchists, organized crime networks, and opportunistic bandits to smash store windows, loot businesses, vandalize cars, burn and descecrate Churches, and defile buildings with graffiti, has given everyone a glimpse of the chaos and violence of hell. It has not only siphoned our attention from the long-overdue conversation and conversion our society must have about the evil of racism but aggravated public antagonism between police and protestors, between politicians and the public, between law-abiding and law-breaking citizens, between business owners and those who think rage gives them the green light to take crowbars and molotov cocktails to others’ livelihoods. We all know where division ultimately comes from: the same fallen spirit who sought to divide Adam and Eve from each other and from God. The evil we have experienced, from racism to the killing of the defenseless to the vandalism, destruction and robbing of strangers’ property, all come from a deep-rooted sin, a failure to see and reverence the dignity of others made in God’s image, which comes from a failure to see and reverence God himself. Attacks against God’s sons and daughters and against the works of their hands are sins against God, against others, and against the perpetrators themselves.

* That’s why today’s feast of the Holy Trinity is so important. Every Sunday is, in a very real sense, dedicated to God and therefore every Sunday really is Trinity Sunday. But since the 1300s, the Church has celebrated on the Sunday immediately following Pentecost a feast dedicated explicitly to the Holy Trinity, to help all of us focus more directly on God is in his profound mysterious depths, and therefore on who we’re called to be made in His image.

* “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity,” we read in a key paragraph in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “is the central mystery of Christian faith and life.” It’s the central mystery, note, not just with regard to what we believe but how we live. The Catechism goes on to say why: “It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the ‘hierarchy of the truths of faith.’” The mystery of the Trinity enlightens the mystery of Creation, the mystery of Redemption, the Mystery of Sanctification. It illumines every page of Sacred Scripture. It helps us to understand the commandments. It sheds light on the four last things. It reveals what is at the root of all of the sacraments and prayer. And it illumines for us the way out of the dark basements of divided houses. The Catechism paragraph concludes, “The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men ‘and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin” (CCC 234).

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for Trinity Sunday (A), Vigil

June 6, 2020

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.6.20_Landry_ConCon_1.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 tomorrow on Trinity Sunday.

* Every Sunday is, in a very real sense, dedicated to God and therefore every Sunday really is Trinity Sunday. But since the 1300s, the Church has celebrated on the Sunday immediately following Pentecost a feast dedicated to the Holy Trinity, to help all of us focus more explicitly on who God is in his profound mysterious depths, and therefore who we’re called to be made in His image and likeness.

* “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity,” we read in an incredibly important paragraph in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “is the central mystery of Christian faith and life.” It’s the central mystery, note, not just with regard to what we believe but how we live. The Catechism goes on to say why: “It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the ‘hierarchy of the truths of faith.’” The mystery of the Trinity enlightens the mystery of Creation, the mystery of Redemption, the Mystery of Sanctification. It illumines every page of Sacred Scripture. It helps us to understand the commandments. It sheds light on the four last things. It reveals what is at the root of all of the sacraments and prayer.

* The Catechism paragraph concludes, “The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men ‘and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin” (CCC 234). Underneath the history of the world, underneath our own personal history from the moment of our conception in our mother’s womb, until now and beyond, has developed within this mystery of the Blessed Trinity. Therefore, it’s crucial for us as human beings, not to mention believers, to pour ourselves into the mystery of the Trinity. This means not just pouring our minds, but our heart, soul, strength and entire existence, into this reality. The Christian life is meant to be a Trinitarian life. Your life, my life, is meant to be a Trinitarian life.

* How do we live a Trinitarian life?

* We certainly are helped to live this reality liturgically, although often we fail to recognize it. This whole Mass, for example, is lived in communion with the Trinity. We begin Mass in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We will end it by receiving the blessing of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Everything we do and say during this Mass is nothing other than a dialogue between us and the Father, through the person of Jesus Christ, in the light and with the help of the Holy Spirit. The priest greets us all with St. Paul’s words from the second reading of Trinity Sunday, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” The Mass is supposed to help us to enter into God’s grace, love and communion. In the middle of Mass, we loudly proclaim that we have grounded our lives in the mystery of the Trinity, uniting ourselves to the entire Church on earth, in heaven and in Purgatory as we say: “I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth… I believe in one Lord,