Catholic Preaching

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

 

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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: 

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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: 

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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: 

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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,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

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

April 18, 2020

 

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

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The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy for me to be with you at the end of the Easter Octave as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us. It’s a dialogue that happened on the night Jesus triumphantly rose from the dead.

* He walked through the closed doors of the Upper Room where the apostles were huddling together out of fear and he first said to them, “Shalom!,” “Peace be with you!” Jesus had come down from heaven to earth and given his life to give us peace, but it was a special kind of peace, one the world can’t give or take away. “Not as the world gives peace do I give it,” Jesus had said during the Last Supper. The peace Jesus leaves and gives us is not the mere absence of war or conflict, but harmony with God through the forgiveness of sins. Without this type of peace, no other form can endure, because it is sin that destroys interior peace, the peace of the home, the peace of friendship, the peace of communities, the peace of nations. And so Jesus, wasting absolutely no time to set the next stage of his peace plan in motion, on the night of his resurrection divinely empowered the apostles as his peacemakers to bring that gift, and the joy to which it leads, to the ends of the earth.

* It’s important for us to pay close attention to the various steps Jesus took so that we can understand better the divine foundation of the Sacrament of his Mercy and better explain it to those who claim that they can confess their sins to God alone without the Sacrament. Jesus began by saying to the apostles, “Just as the Father sent me, so I send you!” We know that the Father had sent Jesus as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world and Jesus was sending his apostles to continue that saving mission of mercy. Since we know that only God can forgive sins against Him (see Mk 2:7), however, Jesus needed to impart to the apostles that divine power. So he breathed on them as he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” He gave them God the Holy Spirit so that they might forgive sins in God’s name, just as we hear every time the priest pronounces those beautiful words in the Sacrament of Penance, “God, the Father of Mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son, has … sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins.” And then Jesus did something that refers to the essential structure of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. He said, “Those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; those whose sins you retain, they are retained.” Since Jesus didn’t give the apostles the capacity to read hearts and souls, the only way they — and their successors and their priestly collaborators — would be able to know which sins to forgive or to retain would be if people told them. And that’s what happens in the Sacrament of Confession.

* It’s so fitting that Jesus established this Sacrament of his Mercy on Easter Sunday Evening because he wanted to link the joy of his resurrection to the joy of forgiveness. He had pointed to the connection between the two when he gave us the unforgettable Parable of the Prodigal Son. When the lost son returns to the Father to give his rehearsed speech of repentance, the Father erupts with happiness, because his son was dead and had been brought to life again. This Parable, which is about what happens in the Sacrament of Penance,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for Easter Sunday (A), Vigil

April 11, 2020

 

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The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy for me to wish you and your family a Happy Easter as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us. It’s a conversation that should be anything but routine, especially this year, as most of us need to celebrate Easter at home. Just like Jesus entered the closed doors of the Upper Room where the apostles and Mary were living during their time in Jerusalem, just like Jesus entered the home of the disciples in Emmaus where they recognized him in the Breaking of the Bread of Life, so Jesus wants to enter our homes this Easter and help us to enter into his triumph of light over darkness, joy over sadness, love over hatred and life over death.

* There are various consequential conversations that happened on that first Easter. The angel spoke to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary at the tomb saying, “Do not be afraid. You are seeking Jesus the crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, “He has been raised from the dead!” They receive the incredible news of Jesus’ resurrection and then are called to share that news. We have Jesus’ very intimate conversation later with Magdalene in the Garden where because of her sadness she couldn’t discern the risen Lord’s presence and mistook him for the gardener before he called her by name. The same Jesus wants to call us by name and to recognize his victorious presence with us. We have the conversation of Jesus with the two crestsfallen disciples on the Road to Emmaus whose hopes that Jesus might have been the Messiah had been crushed by his death, but Jesus helped to open their minds to the meaning of the Scriptures and made their hearts burn when they began to recognize that Jesus’ crucifixion was not a contradiction of his Messianic mission but a confirmation. The same metamorphosis Jesus worked in them he wants to effect in us, helping us to understand everything, especially our greatest sadnesses, within the light of God’s words and will, so that our hearts might burn, that we might recognize him in the Eucharist, and that we might, like the Emmaus disciples, go uphill in darkness to share that light. We have the dialogue of the Risen Jesus with the apostles in the Upper Room when he asked them, “Why are you troubled? Why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and feet, that it is I,” and then he strengthened them in their Mission to bring his triumph to the ends of the earth. Jesus wants to answer our questions and to strengthen us to complete that same Mission.

* It is a huge disappointment — for priests and faithful alike — that we are not able to celebrate Jesus’ victory together in packed Churches. But even though we are not able to celebrate Easter together liturgically, even though we are not able to receive Jesus’ risen body and blood in holy Communion, even though we are not able to welcome into the Church as scheduled the new Catholics who have been preparing through baptism to enter into Jesus’ death and resurrection, the reality of what we memorialize on Easter remains. And it should impact our lives just as it impacted Mary Magdalene in the Garden, the ten apostles cowering in the Upper Room, the confused disciples on the Road to Emmaus, doubting Thomas before Jesus’ wounds,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for Palm Sunday (A), Vigil

April 4, 2020

 

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The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry once again and it’s a privilege to have a chance to ponder with you the consequential conversation that Jesus wants to have with us tomorrow on Palm Sunday and throughout this upcoming week that theChurch calls “holy.” It’s holy, first, because of all Jesus Christ did during these days, from the triumphal entry into his city, to his teaching in the Temple, to the Last Supper, to his prayer in Gethsemane, to his arrest, torture, crucifixion, preaching and death on Good Friday, to his rest in the tomb, and his glorious resurrection on the third day. It’s also called holy because it’s meant to make us holy, if we live this week the right way, if we enter into the mysteries we celebrate, if we internalize all Jesus won for us during these most holy of days, if we, in short, enter into a conversation with Jesus not just with thoughts or words but with our whole life. Holy Week is supposed to be our most faith-filled week of the year, but that requires our choosing to make it the most faith-filled week of the year.

* That’s obviously going to be more challenging to do in 2020 because of the various restrictions that have been placed on public worship due to the coronavirus. The liturgies of Holy Week are so powerful that, when we show up and are attentive, the palms, prayers, readings, music, homilies, smells and bells will normally bring us into the heart of the mysteries. Prioritizing the time to be there already predisposes us to receive what God wants to give. Just entering into the Church is a choice to leave the profane and enter the sacred. Such settings cannot be replicated. But this Holy Week we’re summoned to do the best we can. Such settings cannot be replicated. But this Holy Week we’re summoned to do the best we can. To live it well will require taking responsibility to give greater than normal cooperation with God’s grace, more focused prayer, and far greater interior and exterior preparation.

* The interior preparations are going to involve prayer and reading. There are some great books to help us. I would recommend Bishop Alban Goodier’s classic The Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ and Pope Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth, Part II, Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, which could be read individually or, better, as a family. It would also be a time to watch some of the great movies about Jesus, which help us retrace the steps of Jesus’ life that led to the Upper Room, Calvary and the tomb, like Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ or the Visual Bible’s films on each of the Gospels. As most of us will have to watch the sacred ceremonies on television or on devices, learning how to use these media better to focus on Jesus through movies like these will make it easier for us to pray through them better as we watch the ceremonies.

* The exterior preparations are likewise important. They begin with trying to create, as best we can, sacred space in our home where we can block out distractions. The place should be cleaned and put in order, like a well-cleaned Church. We should dress up like we would if we were attending our parish. We should actively participate in the liturgies to the extent possible, praying aloud the responses, kneeling, standing, and sitting as we would when attending. Even though we will not be receiving Holy Communion, it would be good nevertheless to live a Eucharistic fas...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

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

March 28, 2020

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.28.20_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry once again and it’s good to be back with you at the end of the program to have a chance to ponder with you the consequential conversation Jesus wants to have with the Church tomorrow on the Fifth Sunday of Lent. In this present situation of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s a very poignant and relevant dialogue, one that can have a big impact on our faith and our hope.

* When Martha and Mary sent Jesus a message that their brother Lazarus was ill, he remained where he was for two days basically until Lazarus had died. It confused the apostles and likewise confused Martha and Mary. When Jesus finally arrived, Martha ran out to greet him and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Mary later came, she said the exact same words. They had faith in Jesus that he could have healed their brother just like he had healed so many others. But Martha’s hope was not extinguished. She said to Jesus, “But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” It was now the fourth day and Jews, based on different passages in the Old Testament, believed that a person’s soul hovered around the body for three days after death, but by the fourth day the person had passed the place of no return. Martha, however, was not intimidated. “Whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” That led to one of the most fascinating dialogues on the meaning of faith we have in the Gospel.

* Jesus said to Martha, “Your brother will rise.” And Martha replied immediately with stunning words, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” She, together with Lazarus and Mary, had probably asked Jesus during one of his visits to their house to reveal to them what would happen to us after death and had learned from Jesus how he would destroy death and restore life. She hadn’t forgotten the lesson about the general resurrection. But that’s not what she was requesting … and that’s not what Jesus himself was immediately planning to do.

* Jesus told her that ultimately told her that resurrection is not so much a concept, or state, or an event, but a relationship. “I am,” he told her, “the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. To be risen from the dead, to be fully alive, means to be in a living, loving friendship with Jesus. If one lives and died in such a friendship with Jesus, he affirms, then death is nothing other than a change of address as a person continues in relationship with him who is the life and who came to give us life to the full.

* But then Jesus looked Martha right in the eyes and asked, “Do you believe this?” Jesus asks us the same question. For us to look at the resurrection and the life not as concepts but as a personal relationship requires looking at Jesus not as an historical figure but as a living, acting, breathing, loving Savior present right now seeking to raise us to experience life to the full. Martha didn’t reply merely, “Yes, Lord!” She presented us the grounds of faith. She said, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” Because of her living faith in Jesus, because of her trust in him, she committed herself to believing anything he would say, even if it seemed hard or even impossible to believe.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

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

March 21, 2020

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.21.20_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege to have a chance to ponder with you the consequential conversation God wants to have with the Church tomorrow on the Fourth Sunday of Lent. For many of us, this is a conversation that will unfortunately happen outside of Mass, since the coronavirus pandemic has led to the cancellation of Mass across many dioceses. But what Jesus communicates to us in dialogue this weekend is meant to be a sign of great hope for all of us during this time of so many changes as well as concerns for those struck by Covid-19.

* In the Gospel, Jesus cures a man blind for birth, but he does something very different than in all the other miracles in which Jesus cured those who had no sight. First, unlike in all the other cases, the blind man doesn’t cry out for help. He’s just there, along the road, and becomes the subject of a theological question from the disciples about the cause of his blindness. Jesus states that the reason that man was blind from birth was to allow God’s works to show through him; his whole life in darkness until that point was so that he could encounter the saving power of Jesus and from that moment onward to be a tremendously conspicuous example of God’s own light shining ever more brightly through him. That truth influences the way Jesus performs this miracle, because Jesus had two healings in mind — first a physical one for him and then a spiritual one for him and for us all.

* The Lord doesn’t keep his social distance, but spits on the ground, makes mud with his saliva, and then goes up unbidden to the blind man and smears his eyes with mud. The blind man in the Gospel could have easily thought that someone was making fun of him or abusing him, as probably happened often. But the Lord is not done. Jesus then tells him to go to wash in the pool of Siloam. The blind man could have reckoned, “What a stupid and pointless hassle! Make me dirty and then send me, who can’t see, to wash in a pool, where I could easily fall in and drown.” Jesus, however, must have given that command in a way that inspired trust. By his willingness to carry out this simple imperative Jesus gives him, the man embarks, without knowing it, on the great adventure of faith, on the exciting journey from darkness into light. Jesus allows this man, unlike the other blind men he cured — and this is the second difference from the other cures Jesus worked — to participate actively in his own healing, so that through the process, he might receive not just the ability to see the physical light of the world but also a much deeper light, the light of faith in Jesus, the true light of the world.

* Three-and-a-half weeks ago, Jesus did something to us similar to what he did to the man born blind in today’s Gospel. We went up to someone acting in His Name, who smudged our foreheads not with muddy saliva but moistened ashes, and gave us a two-part command, the very same directive with which Jesus began His whole public ministry, “Repent and believe in the Good News!” This was Jesus’ pathway for us to participate in our own healing during this blessed time of Lent, in our own coming from the darkness into the light of Christ, in our own exodus from sin to love, in our own Passover from death to life. We might have been tempted to consider this more or less an empty rite, something merely symbolic,