Catholic Preaching

By Father Roger LandryReligion & Spirituality Christianity

Catholic Preaching episodes

June 16Becoming Like Our Father, Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time (II), June 16, 2026
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Annual Retreat for the Priests of the Diocese of Gary
Mundelein Seminary Conference Center
Mundelein, Illinois
Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
June 16, 2026
1 Kings 21:17-29, Ps 51, Mt 5:43-48

To listen to an audio recording of the homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.16.26_Homily_1.mp3

The following text guided the homily:
On Sunday we will celebrate Father’s Day, which is an occasion not just to celebrate and thank our fathers living and dead, not just to try to inspire, strengthen and bless the dads in our parish, but also an occasion to focus on our own spiritual fatherhood, so that we can become ever more, like Jesus, an icon of God the Father from whom, St. Paul tells us, every fatherhood in heaven and on earth takes its origin (Eph 3:14-15). Our people call us “Father,” and this is not any more a violation than their calling their biological dads “father,” because we and they recognize ours is not a substitution for God the Father by a vicarious participation in his one fatherhood of the human race.
Today in the Gospel, taken from the eighth of sixteen installments in this two-and-a-half week annual refresher course on the Christian life that Jesus gives us as we enter step-by-step into his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus speaks to us of His Father and urges us to take on his virtues. The main point of the Sermon on the Mount is to help us to adopt God’s standard as our own. Jesus wants our righteousness to surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees, to have our conduct exceed that of the virtuous pagans whom he tells us today love those who love them. Jesus wants us to learn how to become the perfect image of our Father just like he is, and the way we come to that perfection is through loving like God loves. To love like God loves we must be merciful like our Father is merciful (Lk 6:36). Today Jesus emphasizes that point and the first reading illustrates it.
In the Gospel, Jesus describes for us the way God the Father loves and summons us to live according to that standard. Just like God the Father forgives and loves those who have made themselves his enemy through sin and through serving other gods, so Jesus calls us to love and pardon our enemies. Jesus does everything he can to solicit the conversion of those who persecute him and calls us likewise to pray for our persecutors. He says something startling about the importance of our doing so. He calls us to do this so that we “may be children of [our] Father in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” Jesus implies that we will not really become children of God until we start behaving like God; that God can be our Father without our being in practice his children if we do not act as his children. We know that by birth and by baptism, we are, ontologically, his children, but we still must strive to become morally his children. Jesus calls us to be good — to let our sun or life-giving rain fall — not just on those who are good to us but even on those who are not good to us, just like God the Father does. We are not behaving as chips off the old divine block when we don’t love others enough to forgive them when they hurt us, to pray for them when they persecute us, to sacrifice for them when they’re in need, to avoid all vengeance against them when they strike us on our cheek or otherwise hurt or offend us. When Jesus calls us at the end of the passage to be “perfect as [our] heavenly Father is perfect,” the word in the Greek is teleios, which means “fit to achieve its end or goal.” Jesus is summoning us to order our lives to the same purpose and same goal as God the Father, to achieve the end for which we were made, which is to be fully in the image and likeness of God, to be holy as God is holy, to love like God loves, to be merciful as he is merciful, to behave truly as children of our Father.
God shows us how to do that in today’s first reading. He sends the prophet Elijah to confront King Ahab who is seizing the field of his neighbor Naboth whom Queen Jezebel had conspired to have framed and stoned to death. Ahab explicitly confronts Elijah as his adversary, saying, “Have you found me out, my enemy?” To make God’s prophet one’s enemy is to make an enemy of the one who sent the prophet. Ahab opposed and through Jezebel would even seek to kill Elijah because Elijah was calling him to convert from his worship of Baal. Ahab, we read, had “given [himself] up to evil in the Lord’s sight,” provoking God “by leading Israel into sin,” and becoming “completely abominable by following idols, just as the Amorites had done.” But after Elijah’s strong words, Ahab repented. He tore his garments, put on sackcloth, fasted and went about subdued. God noted Ahab’s conversion, his humbling himself to beg for mercy, and God told Elijah, “Since he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his time. I will bring the evil upon his house during the reign of his son.” That phrase, at first sight, can seem almost evil on God’s part: instead of punishing Ahab, he’ll take it out on Ahab’s progeny. But all that this means is that God, on account of Ahab’s conversion, was going to delay the natural consequences of Ahab’s and Jezebel’s maleficence. There are natural effects to the type of corruption that they showed: other worldly powers would be alienated and angry, the people would be fed up, the children raised in a corrupt home would themselves be disordered rulers. God was not going to be going out of his way to punish Ahab’s kids for Ahab’s sins, but instead Abab’s kids would reap the evil their father, mother, grandfather and grandmother had sown — especially if they failed to convert. God the Father had let his rain and sunshine descend upon Ahab just like he had on Elijah, but if people seek to live in a moral prison out of the sun and rain eventually they’ll suffer from the lack of those elements.
The lesson for us, though, is that if God can forgive Ahab, we, too, can forgive our enemies. For God, those who have made themselves His enemy are always his prodigal sons and daughters, whom he loves and whose return he seeks. For us, our adversaries are always our brothers and sisters. If we’re going truly to be children of our heavenly Father, then we need to see them as fallen-away children of the same heavenly Father. Hence, we need to love them, to pray for them, to forgive them when they convert, conscious of the fact that God himself has previously loved us, prayed for our return, and reconciled us — as have so often our parents and many of our own spiritual siblings.
The greatest Christians are those who act on these words of Jesus. We can think about St. Stephen, who became a son-in-the-Son most beautifully in his martyrdom. Just as Jesus on the Cross loved his enemies and prayed for his persecutors that God the Father would forgive them for they knew not what they were doing, so the first martyr prayed during his stoning, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Those words have echoed throughout the centuries in the heroic forgiveness offered by so many martyrs, so many faithful spouses who were betrayed, so many friends who gave others second chances after having been backstabbed, so many children who were let down, so many ordinary Christians who were victimized in one way or another but who became extraordinary Christians through forgiving, loving and praying as God the Father does and Jesus summons us to do today.
There is an important lesson we can draw from today’s reading. The first is that God often allows us to have enemies and persecutors precisely so that we can grow to become like him. If our goal is to become “teleios” then, as difficult as it is humanly to have people oppose us, spiritually we will look at these people as benefactors, because they’re God’s chisels to sculpt us to become more like him. This is true both for those who have almost made their very purpose of existence to oppose us — the enemies of the Church, the enemies of life, the enemies of everything we stand for — but also for those who are absolutely not our enemies but easily and regularly get under our skin. Morally they’re gifts to us drawing us to love them the way we love those we like more easily, to love them more and more because God loves them, to love them more and more like God.
Archbishop Peter Sartain, the emeritus Archbishop of Portland in Oregon, has a great book called Strengthen Your Brothers, with a great chapter entitled, “Gracefully dealing with Alexander the Coppersmith.” St. Paul writes about Alexander the Coppersmith, whom he encountered in Ephesus, at the end of his Second Letter to Timothy (2 Tim 4:14), saying, “Alexander the coppersmith did me a great deal of harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds.” Archbishop Sartain mentions that all of us eventually have Alexanders in our life, those who oppose us and our work, and do everything they can to frustrate it, fostering opposition, perhaps spreading rumors, trying to portray the good we’re trying to do as evil. I certainly had one in a parish who, because he didn’t like some of the decisions I made to replace some ugly Church fixtures with more beautiful ones, went around everywhere saying I was destroying the parish and trying to get people to leave it. Archbishop Sartain says: “At times, Alexander the coppersmith walks into our lives. He, she, or they are the ones whose hot-headed complaints, unjust judgments, anonymous letters, petty gossip, or unyielding hostility smarts to the core because it is aimed deliberately and squarely at us. Whether it is a case of personality conflict, ideological difference, disagreement with decisions we have made, mental illness, our inability to meet unreasonable expectations, pure malice, or the uncomfortable fact that we may, in fact, be in the wrong, we feel Alexander’s shadow. It can consume us emotionally and spiritually if we allow it.” He asks how we should respond. He says first we must see if there’s any justification to the criticism being made and if so convert. Next, he says, we must forgive. Third, he says, perhaps Alexander is acting out of his own wounds, and God wants us to act with compassion. Archbishop Sartain refers to the story of the sufferings of Joseph the Patriarch that God used to save his family. Like with John Vianney, Vincent de Paul and many other saints who have suffered from their own Alexanders falsely accusing them of impregnating parishioners or stealing from roommates, God can use the way we respond to such evils to bring many people to faith, just like he used Good Friday to make Easter Sunday possible for everyone.
The type of love to which Jesus calls us today, it goes almost without saying, is very challenging. It goes beyond what reason would lead us to do or what any other religion has called its adherents to practice. It’s what makes the Christian life and Christian love distinctive. Jesus really does call us to act on these words, to begin to pray for those who oppose us and even try to harm or kill us, to forgive them, and — most of all — to love them with his own total self-sacrificial and unconquerable benevolence (agape). Even though this standard of love exceeds what we would be capable of on our own, what’s impossible for us is not impossible for God. To make this possible, God has created a means by which we can enter truly into communion with him, so that his own love can flow through us. That’s what happens here in Mass, as by the power of the Holy Spirit and the gift of God the Father, we enter into communion with Jesus and are brought by him into the heart of the Trinitarian communion of love. As we prepare to receive Him now, let us ask Him in his Mercy for the grace to keep that loving communion alive, so that strengthened Him, we might live truly as children of our heavenly Father, might become better spiritual fathers through imitating his fatherhood, and might become teleios due to this loving yoke with the Father’s only Begotten Son we’re about to receive.

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1
1 KGS 21:17-29
After the death of Naboth the LORD said to Elijah the Tishbite:
“Start down to meet Ahab, king of Israel,
who rules in Samaria.
He will be in the vineyard of Naboth,
of which he has come to take possession.
This is what you shall tell him,
‘The LORD says: After murdering, do you also take possession?
For this, the LORD says:
In the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth,
the dogs shall lick up your blood, too.’”
Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me out, my enemy?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“Because you have given yourself up to doing evil in the LORD’s sight,
I am bringing evil upon you: I will destroy you
and will cut off every male in Ahab’s line,
whether slave or freeman, in Israel.
I will make your house like that of Jeroboam, son of Nebat,
and like that of Baasha, son of Ahijah,
because of how you have provoked me by leading Israel into sin.”
(Against Jezebel, too, the LORD declared,
“The dogs shall devour Jezebel in the district of Jezreel.”)
“When one of Ahab’s line dies in the city,
dogs will devour him;
when one of them dies in the field,
the birds of the sky will devour him.”
Indeed, no one gave himself up to the doing of evil
in the sight of the LORD as did Ahab,
urged on by his wife Jezebel.
He became completely abominable by following idols,
just as the Amorites had done,
whom the LORD drove out before the children of Israel.
When Ahab heard these words, he tore his garments
and put on sackcloth over his bare flesh.
He fasted, slept in the sackcloth, and went about subdued.
Then the LORD said to Elijah the Tishbite,
“Have you seen that Ahab has humbled himself before me?
Since he has humbled himself before me,
I will not bring the evil in his time.
I will bring the evil upon his house during the reign of his son.”
Responsorial Psalm PS 51:3-4, 5-6AB, 11 AND 16
R. (see 3a) Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.
Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me.
R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.
For I acknowledge my offense,
and my sin is before me always:
“Against you only have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight.”
R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.
Turn away your face from my sins,
and blot out all my guilt.
Free me from blood guilt, O God, my saving God;
then my tongue shall revel in your justice.
R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.
Gospel MT 5:43-48
Jesus said to his disciples:
“You have heard that it was said,
You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
But I say to you, love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your heavenly Father,
for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,
and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?
Do not the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brothers only,
what is unusual about that?
Do not the pagans do the same?
So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
The post Becoming Like Our Father, Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time (II), June 16, 2026 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
21 min
June 16 Missionary Prayer (Part I), Retreat for the Priests of the Diocese of Gary, June 16, 2026
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Annual Retreat for the Priests of the Diocese of Gary
Mundelein Seminary Conference Center
Mundelein, Illinois
June 16, 2026

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.16.26_Missionary_Prayer_I_1.mp3
The post Missionary Prayer (Part I), Retreat for the Priests of the Diocese of Gary, June 16, 2026 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
55 min
June 16The Lord’s Tuning Our Missionary Mind and Heart to His, Monday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time (II), June 15, 2026
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Annual Retreat for the Priests of the Diocese of Gary
Mundelein Seminary Conference Center
Mundelein, Illinois
Monday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
June 15, 2026
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/6.15.26_Homily_1.mp3

The following text guided 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 at not getting his way he lay down on his bed and refused to eat. We see how coveting for material goods can destroy someone: as King of Israel, he had so many pieces of property and so many possessions, but he was unhappy because of what he didn’t have, rather than grateful for what he did. 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 to 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. From the Sermon on the Mount, 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 a covetous, 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 he says to us earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, 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 evil would be done and for generations. The law of talion put a limit to revenge. Jesus, however, wanted to give us a different principle for the limitation of vengeance: namely, love, in imitation of the sacrificial, other-centered, merciful love of God in whose image we have been made. When Jesus tells us to offer no resistance to one who is evil, he’s telling us not to be consumed with fighting back. He’s telling us to put the relationship with the offender over the material thing we might surrender or have already given. If someone backhands us on the right cheek, rather than strike him in the solar plexus, Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, a maneuver that would prevent him from backhanding the other side and that would affirm our dignity without hurting someone we’re supposed to love, even if he’s not reciprocally loving us. When he tells us to give our cloak to someone who wants our tunic, he’s instructing us to sacrifice for him out of love even what we would need (most Jews would have a second tunic, but not a second cloak). When he tells us to walk a second mile rather than just one in compulsory service in delivering packages, he is urging us not to do so with resentment but to volunteer to go further out of love. When he instructs us “Give to the one who asks of you and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow,” he’s forming us to imitate his own divine generosity. Jesus’ principle was not merely to prevent the escalation of violence, but to respond to evil with good, to respond to selfishness with selflessness, to respond to provocation with pardon, to respond to want with beneficence. This is, of course, what he himself did. When the Roman soldiers slapped one cheek and mocked him, he didn’t retaliate. When they stripped him of his cloak, he gave them his tunic and all his other clothes as well. When they pressed him to carry the cross, he carried it not only to Calvary but carries it still through time in his Mystical Body. When people asked of him, he gave a full measure, packed down, overflowing into his lap. In this, he calls us to follow him, to love others as he has loved us first, to live according to his standards.
So back to Naboth, Ahab and Jezebel and to all victims of corruption and violence today: Is Jesus telling us to let the mafia, terrorists, or megalomaniacal public officials run wild and take whatever we have? No. In Naboth’s case, that would have been violating the covenant he had made with God. But he is telling us three things.
First, to leave justice to God, something that we will see he will do with Ahab by sending the prophet Elijah.
Second, not to let a worse evil beset us than the evil of losing what is rightfully ours: missing the opportunity to love, to forgive, to become more and more like our Trinitarian God. As we’ll be hearing tomorrow, Jesus calls us to retaliate to those who have made themselves our enemies with love, to those who are persecuting us with prayer. Even if people seek to take our lands, clothes, and time and to take advantage of our generosity, they can’t take our soul unless we give it to them, and that’s what’s most at stake in any such circumstance that Jesus describes.
Third, if we’re going to defend our rights, we should do so not out of selfishness but real care — love — for others who are hurt by selfishness or physical abuse against others or using others or manipulating others for what they don’t need.
So many missionaries have lived by these challenging principles. I have the privilege to serve on the Board of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs in Auriesville, New York, where three of the North American Martyrs — Saints Isaac Jogues, Rene Goupil and Jean de Lalande — gave their lives for God and where, out of their fruitful blood irrigating the soil, St. Kateri Tekakwitha was born. The chronicles of the North American Martyrs reveal that they were willing to bear everything to convert those to whom they had been sent. Their meekness — a strength that is so strong it doesn’t have to show its strength — came through in the way that they endured far more than slaps on the face, running through gauntlets, having digits bit off, and in St. John de Brébeuf’s case, even being flayed, boiled, having his tongue cut off, and then chest pierced so that they could take out his heart and drink his valiant blood. All of this was part of their great witness to the Lord Jesus who had willingly endured similarly brutal tortures from the Roman soldiers, but this eventually led to the conversion of many of the native Americans in eastern Canada and the northeast. As priests, we have faced, and will face, likely far less to proclaim the Gospel. But we’re called to have a mind and a heart, a priestly identity, like them, to be willing to give all in testimony to the meek and humble of heart Savior who called us to follow him, to be with him, and sent us out to love like him.
If today’s Gospel, responding to Ahab’s and Jezebel’s treachery toward Naboth, communicates anything, it’s that living as Christians, living by Christ’s standards and following his example, is not easy. But we know that God doesn’t leave us alone with demanding words and occasionally permitted sufferings. He gives us himself to help us meet his standards, and he offers us his mercy to help us never give up. Despite our sins having led to his crucifixion, at Mass he willingly goes far more than an extra mile and allows us to consume him. At Mass he gives us not just a tunic or cloak but his very own body, blood, soul and divinity. At Mass he gives to the one who asks. And then he tell us “Do this in memory of me.” By that command, he is charging us to be missionaries of this way of life, of this revolution of love. Let us receive Christ today with faith, that with him inside of us, we can not only live by his words but find in them truly the Good News that will lead us and others and ultimately, we pray, the whole world to salvation.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1
1 Kings 21:1-16
Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel
next to the palace of Ahab, king of Samaria.
Ahab said to 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.”
Naboth answered him, “The LORD forbid
that I should give you my ancestral heritage.”
Ahab went home disturbed and angry at the answer
Naboth the Jezreelite had made to him:
“I will not give you my ancestral heritage.”
Lying down on his bed, he turned away from food and would not eat.
His wife Jezebel came to him and said to him,
“Why are you so angry that you will not eat?”
He answered her, “Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite
and said to him, ‘Sell me your vineyard, or,
if you prefer, I will give you a vineyard in exchange.’
But he refused to let me have his vineyard.”
His wife Jezebel said to him,
“A fine ruler over Israel you are indeed!
Get up.
Eat and be cheerful.
I will obtain the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite for you.”
So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name and,
having sealed them with his seal,
sent them to the elders and to the nobles
who lived in the same city with Naboth.
This is what she wrote in the letters:
“Proclaim a fast and set Naboth at the head of the people.
Next, get two scoundrels to face him
and accuse him of having cursed God and king.
Then take him out and stone him to death.”
His fellow citizens—the elders and nobles who dwelt in his city—
did as Jezebel had ordered them in writing,
through the letters she had sent them.
They proclaimed a fast and placed Naboth at the head of the people.
Two scoundrels came in and confronted him with the accusation,
“Naboth has cursed God and king.”
And they led him out of the city and stoned him to death.
Then they sent the information to Jezebel
that Naboth had been stoned to death.
When Jezebel learned that Naboth had been stoned to death,
she said to Ahab,
“Go on, take possession of the vineyard
of Naboth the Jezreelite that he refused to sell you,
because Naboth is not alive, but dead.”
On hearing that Naboth was dead, Ahab started off on his way
down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite,
to take possession of it.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 5:2-3ab, 4b-6a, 6b-7
R. (2b) Lord, listen to my groaning.
Hearken to my words, O LORD,
attend to my sighing.
Heed my call for help,
my king and my God!
R. Lord, listen to my groaning.
At dawn I bring my plea expectantly before you.
For you, O God, delight not in wickedness;
no evil man remains with you;
the arrogant may not stand in your sight.
R. Lord, listen to my groaning.
You hate all evildoers.
You destroy all who speak falsehood;
The bloodthirsty and the deceitful
the LORD abhors.
R. Lord, listen to my groaning.
Alleluia
Psalm 119:105
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
A lamp to my feet is your word,
a light to my path.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Matthew 5:38-42
Jesus said to his disciples:
“You have heard that it was said,
An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
But I say to you, 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.”
The post The Lord’s Tuning Our Missionary Mind and Heart to His, Monday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time (II), June 15, 2026 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
24 min
June 16 Our Two-fold Missionary Conversion, Retreat for the Priests of the Diocese of Gary, June 15, 2026
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Annual Retreat for the Priests of the Diocese of Gary
Mundelein Seminary Conference Center
Mundelein, Illinois
June 15, 2026
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.15.26_Missionary_Conversion_1.mp3
The post Our Two-fold Missionary Conversion, Retreat for the Priests of the Diocese of Gary, June 15, 2026 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
56 min
June 16 A New Age for the Mission of the Church, Retreat for the Priests of the Diocese of Gary, June 15, 2026
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Annual Retreat for the Priests of the Diocese of Gary
Mundelein Seminary Conference Center
Mundelein, Illinois
June 15, 2026
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.15.26_First_Conference_Gary_Retreat_1.mp3
The post A New Age for the Mission of the Church, Retreat for the Priests of the Diocese of Gary, June 15, 2026 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
50 min
June 14The Team Jesus Is Putting Together For An Imperishable Wreath, Eleventh Sunday (A), June 14, 2026
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY
Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
June 14, 2026
Ex 19:2-6, Ps 100, Rom 5:6-11, Mt 9:36-10:8
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.14.26_Homily_1.mp3

The text that guided the homily was:
On this morning after the New York Knicks won the NBA championship for the first time in 53 years, and as many articles are being written about the unconventional composition of the team that hoisted the trophy, it’s very much worthwhile for us (even for those of us who are Celtics fans) to look at how Jesus put together his own unusual team, trained them, and set them — and all those on Jesus’ team — on the path not to win a perishable trophy but an eternal crown. Today’s readings focus on two essential and related elements: electionby God of a group of people, what we might call Jesus’ first version of the NBA draft; and the mission associated with that election, how he defines winning and the stakes of winning and losing. These lessons point to something fundamental for us to understand not only in terms of sound ecclesiology but also to grasp better our vocation and mission as Christians, priests and religious.
We see these two elements in the first reading from the Book of Exodus, when God chose the Israelites to be his special people, his “treasured possession,” and a “priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” He did so not because the sons and daughters of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were intrinsically better than any other race of people or nation — they weren’t, as we know from the chronicle of their infidelities — but so that he could prepare a people, through a Covenant, to be ready to receive the gift of God’s own Son as the Messiah and Savior of the whole World.
Likewise, in the Gospel of St. Matthew today, we see that that Messiah and Savior chooses, from among all of those following him, twelve disciples, giving them a special task — both by their words as well as by the miraculous deeds he gave them authority and power to accomplish — to announce that the kingdom of God was at hand. They were not chosen because they were superior to the rest of disciples, but because Jesus wanted to give them a task to do for all the rest.
Finally, in the second reading taken from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, we can ponder the reality of ourelection as Christians and what that means. We were chosen by God in baptism and made his special people. The Eucharistic Preface we’ll use today (Sunday of Ordinary Time I) will paraphrase the words of St. Peter who, in an early baptismal catechesis, updated the words of today’s first reading and wrote to us Christians: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, and a people claimed by God for his own, to proclaim the triumphs of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9). Like the others, we have been chosen not because we’re better than any other people; St. Paul tells us this in today’s second reading when he says that “while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” We were chosen, rather, for the sake of the mission, to continue Jesus’ saving work until the ends of the world.
Vocation and mission are intrinsically related. Every time God chooses particular persons or peoples, he selects them for a mission. God summons so that one day he may send. The two great verbs in Jesus’ vocabulary are “come!” — “Come, follow me!” (Mt 19:21), “Come away with me and rest for a while” (Mk 6:31), “Come to me all you who labor and find life burdensome and I will refresh you” (Mt 11:28) — and “go” — “Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt 10:6), “Go to the ends of the earth and proclaim the Good News to every creature” (Mt 28:18).
We Catholics have been chosen by God for all eternity and given a special mission to announce his Gospel and proclaim his kingdom to the ends of the earth. Only one in three people on the planet are Christians, 2.6 out of 8.1 billion. Only 1.4 billion, 17 percent, have the privilege we do of the fullness of revelation, the fullness of the participation in God’s own life in this world, and the fullness of communion. But God didn’t give us his revelation or the sacraments or the Petrine ministry and apostolic succession so that we could become a haughty elite or self-satisfied clique. He gave us these incredible gifts so that we might be his hands, his feet, his mouth, his ears, his eyes in bringing those gifts to others. “To whom more is given,” Jesus said, “more is to be expected” (Lk 12:48). We have been given more, but, as we see in the Parable of the Talents, we’re called to do more with what we’ve been given (Mt 25:14-29).
That is the context to understand better and to respond more wholeheartedly to today’s Gospel. Jesus looked with compassion on the helpless and abandoned crowds, because, St. Matthew says, they were “like sheep without a shepherd,” and his heart burst with pity. He told the disciples that the Harvest is abundant but the laborers are few and so instructed them to pray to the Master of the Harvest for laborers. As they were praying, Jesus helped Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Barthlomew, Thomas, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus, Simon from Cana and Judas Iscariot to recognize that they were God’s answer to the prayers they were making. He changed them from disciples (“followers,” “learners”) to apostles, literally those he is sending out. He gave him his own authority and told them to drive out unclean spirits, cure every disease and illness, raise the dead, and proclaim that “the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” That’s what these simple men then actually went out to do.
We learn several very important lessons from the pivotal scene in world and salvation history.
The first is Jesus’ mercy. Just as Jesus looked with pity on the helpless and abandoned crowds then, so he doubtless looks at so many in today’s world with the same compassion. So many are like shepherdless sheep, searching for direction, lost in the cosmos. So many teenagers tell survey takers that they feel persistently anxious, sad and hopeless, tempted to self-harm and to check out of life. So many of all ages are suffering, wounded, mangled, alone. Many are not hearing the Good Shepherd’s voice, and so they have either stopped listening or have begun tuning in the voices of strangers, even wolves, and following them into danger. Jesus is calling us to look at them with the eyes of his bursting heart.
The second lesson is about the harvest. Jesus tells us that the harvest is huge and there are few taking it in. In St. John’s Gospel he said, “Look around you and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting!” (Jn 4:35). We don’t have to be a farmer to understand what will happen if we don’t act when the fields are ripe: the produce will be corrupted and go to waste. Jesus’ words are a call to urgent action. Like the Knicks throughout the series, especially in Game 4, we’re down by double-digits and the time is running out and we need to focus and double-down. The fields are ever white. We can’t waste time. For some people, perhaps for us, today may be the last day for action. Do we feel that urgency, that woe, to proclaim the Gospel, and to do the work of the kingdom?
The third thing is about the need for prayer. In response to the huge harvest about to perish in the fields, Jesus, first, has us pray for harvesters. This is a command with no expiration date, insofar as there will always be an urgent need for vocations until the end of time. Jesus does not have us go to the fields right away. In response to the need for vocations to the priesthood, religious life, marriage, the diaconate, Christian psychiatrists and psychologists, doctors and nurses, Catholic school teachers, catechists, you name it, the first thing Jesus wants us to do is not a viral video, catchy poster or billboard, or new program. It’s prayer. The first thing we always need to do is pray. Vocations are always gifts from God to which human beings must respond, not things we earn from our own efforts, like salesmen showing quarterly earnings. The vocations crisis that the Church is experiencing in many dioceses, religious orders and states of life today across the country and globe is ultimately a crisis of the lack of prayer. Not enough are praying for vocations, not to mention praying as if their eternal life depended on it. In response to the ripe harvest, we have to pray with urgency and insistence. Is that the way we pray? Are these among the pressing intentions we’ve brought to Mass today?
The fourth thing is to notice what Jesus has us pray for. He has us ask God the Father, the Harvest Master, not for ‘bodies,” but “laborers,” for hard workers. Harvesting for Jesus is not inviting people to a cushy air-conditioned job in a plush corner office or to comfortable remote work. The harvest needs people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty, to work up a sweat. Who are these laborers that the harvest needs? Many Catholics can look at this Gospel passage as a call to pray for priestly and religious vocations. That is clearly one application of Jesus’ words, which is why it is often used by those in vocations work. The whole Church needs to pray more insistently for these vineyard laborers in an age when a shortage is already here and will become more acute. But sixty years after the Second Vatican Council, it should be clear that priests and religious are not the only hard-workers the Harvest Master needs in his vineyard. The fields are ripe and all of us, as God’s chosen ones, have a role in bringing in that harvest. We’re all called to be a member of the team, whether we’re started, or subs, or coaches, or ball boys. No one gets a pass from living out the consequences of our Baptism and Confirmation. If we think we do, we’re not really Jesus’ disciples, for Jesus said, “The one who doesn’t gather with me scatters” (Mt 12:30). Jesus says there’s no way to be neutral: we’re either collectors and laborers in his vineyard, or we’re driving people away from him. Every Catholic is called to be a laborer in the vineyard, to gather with Jesus. To each of us, Jesus says, “I appointed youto go and bear fruit that will last” (Jn 15:16). As he did with the calling of the first twelve at the dawn of the Church, so Jesus wants us in the twenty-first century to recognize that he’s summoning each of us as we’re praying for laborers to be the concrete answer to those petitions. The whole purpose why he founded the Church was to give us, as a community, as a team, the joint task to complete his mission. To proclaim as we do in the Creed that the Church is “apostolic” means not just that it is founded on the Twelve and their successors, but has and is a “mission,” which is what the Greek word “apostolos” (“to be sent”) signifies. Jesus today looks at the multitudes who are lost, many of whom may not be saved, and turns to each of us — with all of the talents and opportunities and graces he’s given us — and says, “What are you going to do about it?” He asks, “Will you help me in this mission for the salvation of the world?”
The fifth thing we notice is the substance of our labor in the fields. Jesus sends the Twelve out to proclaim that the Kingdom of God “has approached” and gives them his authority to expel demons and heal every disease and illness. The Kingdom is present because the King has arrived. The Kingdom of God is, in short, God. It’s where he reigns. To proclaim the Kingdom at hand is to say, “God is here” and “We need to let him reign in our lives.” Jesus sent out the Twelve, and he sends us out, to proclaim, not merely with our words but by the way we live, that we’re not alone, that God is alive, that is he is with us, and that letting him rule in our life has made all the difference in saving us and joyfully transforming us. As part of the proclamation that God is among us, Jesus sends the Twelve out with his authority to expel demons and heal diseases. It must have blown them away to hear and receive this commission of the Lord’s authority. He was sending them out, in other words, with far more than a message to announce; he was sending them with deeds to do. These deeds were signs that the kingdom had come, that the Messiah had arrived, and that the time for change was now. Catholics in every age needs to be signs of the Kingdom, which means signs of exorcism, no longer letting the prince of this world, the father of lies, have any dominion over us and bringing people to Jesus to experience that same liberation. Likewise, to be signs of the kingdom means that we need to be the nurses of the Divine Physician and healing the wounds people have today. The Church, Pope Francis used to say, is a little like a field hospital in battle, a trauma unit, and is meant to prioritize caring for so many are wounded physically, emotionally, relationally, or spiritually, from the battles in the various warzones of life. We’re sent out as Good Samaritans to try to care for people in their illnesses and to help them let Jesus and his healing into their life, remembering that Jesus never healed just for physical healing’s sake, but to bring people to spiritual healing by faith. But we should also stop to ponder something even more astonishing than what Jesus did, in giving the apostles his authority to cast out demons and heal the sick: he has given the Church today authority to do something infinitely greater. He has equipped the Church through Baptism and Confession to heal the soul of sin, through the Eucharist to bring the King from heaven to the altar, and to place that King within us in Holy Communion. We should never stop marveling at these gifts as we are attached as branches to him who is the Vine, and made capable in communion with Him of bearing incredible fruit through preaching, exorcising, healing, and in short, living with the power of Christ’s love. Are we excited for this mission? Are we faithful to it?
Sixth, we notice where Jesus wants us to begin harvesting. He sent the apostles first to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.” He sent them to those around them, whom they knew, who spoke their own language, who shared their own culture. The “house of Israel” included those that the apostles might have taken for granted, like the Scribes, Pharisees, chief priests and Sadducees, because they should have known more about the kingdom than the apostles did, but these groups in large part were lost even when the Kingdom was at hand among them. Similarly, we’re sent out first not to the furthest ends of the world to strangers, but to those who are lost among us — to those we know are lost and even to those who we would presume would not be lost but maybe are going through a crisis of faith, including perhaps even priests, Missionaries of Charity, or lifelong fervent Catholics, who too need a reminder of the Lord’s presence, of his dominion over the evil one, of his healing power, of life-giving communion with him and through, with and in him with others. Even if Jesus has sent us — or will send us — as missionaries to places far away, he wants us still to focus on the “lost sheep” of our own houses, convents, rectories, neighborhoods, to the wandering lambs and goats of our families, friends, fellow students and coworkers. He wants to send us to the lapsed and lukewarm and unchurched people on all sides, to the wounded, mangled and abandoned, to the “sheep without a shepherd,” to tell them that there is a Good Shepherd calling them by name, who loves them and has laid down his life for them (Jn 10:3,11). But he wants to use our recognizable voice to get his message across. Others’ salvation may hinge on our saying yes to this mission. Are we ready to go to those around us, perhaps sitting, standing or sitting next to us, lest we neglect them by going in our imagination to the other side of the world?
The last thing we see is the spirit with which Jesus wants us to respond. He tells us at the end of today’s Gospel passage, “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.” Everything we have and are we have received from God. Jesus calls us to respond to the free gift of his life for us with the free gift of our life for him and others. To love others as he has loved us means precisely to lay down our lives out of love for the salvation of our family and friends, of strangers and enemies, even of priests or religious. We’re called to work as hard for their salvation as Jesus did for ours. This is our mission. This is the reason why we were chosen. This is the task of the Catholic Church and every faithful Catholic.
As the Big Apple marks the Knicks championship and we use it as an analogy and motivation to help us focus on the much bigger things of what St. Paul called fighting the good fight, finishing the race and keeping the faith by passing it on, we are called to remember one lesson championship athletes all know. That championships are determined by good habits, by hard and effective practices, and by what we eat and drink and put into our body. It’s the same thing with Jesus’ team. To strengthen us for this hard work and as a reward for it, Jesus gives us his own flesh and blood in the Eucharist. In it we learn the meaning of generosity, how to give our body and shed our blood and sweat for the salvation of others. This is just one more proof that the Lord, who calls us to this mission, will give us all the help we need to fulfill it, if only we say yes, if only we look with compassion on the same crowds, if only we turn in prayer to the Harvest Master and plead for laborers and respond, rolling up our sleeves and going out with urgency to gather for him those who are ripe and even those that still need to ripen. At Mass each day, God the Father gives us His Son so that we can go out with him to heal, to raise people from the state of being walking corpses and to proclaim that the Kingdom of God is indeed here because the King is here with us always, full of mercy, until the end of time.

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1
Exodus 19:2-6a
In those days, the Israelites came to the desert of Sinai and pitched camp.
While Israel was encamped here in front of the mountain,
Moses went up the mountain to God.
Then the LORD called to him and said,
“Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob;
tell the Israelites:
You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians
and how I bore you up on eagle wings
and brought you here to myself.
Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant,
you shall be my special possession,
dearer to me than all other people,
though all the earth is mine.
You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 100:1-2, 3, 5
R. (3c) We are his people: the sheep of his flock.
Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;
serve the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful song.
R. We are his people: the sheep of his flock.
Know that the LORD is God;
he made us, his we are;
his people, the flock he tends.
R. We are his people: the sheep of his flock.
The LORD is good:
his kindness endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.
R. We are his people: the sheep of his flock.
Reading 2
Romans 5:6-11
Brothers and sisters:
Christ, while we were still helpless,
yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly.
Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person,
though perhaps for a good person
one might even find courage to die.
But God proves his love for us
in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood,
will we be saved through him from the wrath.
Indeed, if, while we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son,
how much more, once reconciled,
will we be saved by his life.
Not only that,
but we also boast of God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Alleluia
Mark 1:15
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent and believe in the Gospel.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Matthew 9:36—10:8
At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them
because they were troubled and abandoned,
like sheep without a shepherd.
Then he said to his disciples,
“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few;
so ask the master of the harvest
to send out laborers for his harvest.”
Then he summoned his twelve disciples
and gave them authority over unclean spirits
to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness.
The names of the twelve apostles are these:
first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew;
James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John;
Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector;
James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus;
Simon from Cana, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.
Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus,
“Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town.
Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons.
Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”
The post The Team Jesus Is Putting Together For An Imperishable Wreath, Eleventh Sunday (A), June 14, 2026 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
30 min
June 14Mary’s Immaculate Heart: Our Refuge and Our Way, Celebration of the Second Fatima Apparition, June 13, 2026
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Blue Army Shrine, Ashbury, NJ
109th Anniversary Celebration of the Second Apparition of Our Lady of Fatima
June 13, 2026

To watch a video of the conference, please click below:

To listen to an audio recording of this conference, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.13.26_June_13_Fatima_Apparition_Our_Refuge_and_our_Way_1.mp3

The outline for this talk was:
It’s a great joy to be back at this Shrine to mark Our Lady’s appearance to the three shepherd children 109 years ago today on June 13. I’ve been asked to focus fundamentally on the June apparition.
Today particularly special because it coincides with the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which is so connected to what Mary revealed to the pastorinhos as the remedy for the problems she indicated the human race was in, and we’ll have a chance to ponder that connection more in the homily at the Mass to follow.
Let’s turn to what occurred on June 13, 1917.
June 13, as you know, is the Feast of St. Anthony. Most call him St. Anthony of Padua, because he spent he died there and his remains are there, in the beautiful Basilica built to house them, the site of so many miracles. But he spent just the last two years of his life there. He spent the first 17 years of his life in Lisbon, born right across from the Cathedral. He spent the next nine years of his life in the royal city of Coimbra. And so 26 of his 35 years were spent in Portugal. And the Portuguese have an intense love for him. His feast day is the feast of young people and Jacinta, Francisco and Lucia were expected to take part in the feasts.
The previous month, when Mary had appeared to them, she asked them not only to pray and sacrifice for the conversion of sinners, but to come each 13th of the month for six months to see her where she was then appearing to her. They committed. But many of those around them did not believe what had occurred and were hoping the distraction of the feast of St. Anthony would keep them away. But it didn’t. At around 11 am, they went, with some who had come on foot from far away, to the Cova da Iria, prayed the Rosary, and then saw our Lady again.
Lucia asked her to tell her what she wanted of her. Our Lady replied, “I wish you to come here on the 13th of next month, to pray the Rosary every day, and to learn to read. Later, I will tell you what I want.”
Lucy asked for the cure of a sick person. Our Lady replied, “If he is converted, he will be cured during the year.”
Then she returned to something she had sought the previous month, to find out whether she, Jacinta, Francisco would go to heaven and whether some whom they knew who had died were there.
Lucia said, “I would like to ask you to take us to Heaven.”
Our Lady said, “Yes. I will take Jacinta and Francisco soon. But you are to stay here some time longer. Jesus wishes to make use of you to make me known and loved. He wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.”
“Am I to stay here alone?” Lucia asked, full of sadness.
“No, my daughter,” Mary replied. “Are you suffering a great deal? Don’t lose heart. I will never forsake you. My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.”
Lucia recalled that as Our Lady spoke these words, she opened her hands and for the second time, she communicated to them the rays of that same immense light. They saw themselves in this light, as it were, immersed in God. Jacinta and Francisco seemed to be in that part of the light which rose towards Heaven, and Lucia in that which was poured out on the earth. In front of the palm of Our Lady’s right hand was a heart encircled by thorns which pierced it. We understood that this was the Immaculate Heart of Mary, outraged by the sins of humanity, and seeking reparation.
Let’s look at various elements and try to learn from them.
What did Mary ask?
Mary asked for them to come on the 13th of every month
The children committed to it, even when it would cause difficulty, like it had that morning and would especially grow over the months to come, particularly in August.
Why Our Lady was asking for that commitment on a specific day, not to mention the 13th, will always be shrouded in mystery. Was it to overcome the superstition tied to the number 13? Was it to feature St. Matthias, the one who took the place of Judas, and to indicate to us how we’re called to continue the apostolate of the 12 apostles Jesus had chosen? Was it to connect her to Queen Esther who’s interventions on behalf of the Jews in Babylon was to prevent their destruction on the 13th of the month of Adar? We have no idea.
But she was asking for a commitment on a specific day and the children committed and did everything they could to keep that commitment.
It was a sign of the other commitments she would ask.
It also pointed to the commitment she would eventually ask all of us through Sister Lucia on Dec 10, 1925 in Pontevedra when she was a Dorothean.
Mary showed her her Immaculate Heart and stated:
“See, my daughter, My Heart surrounded with thorns with which ingrates pierce me at every moment with blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, make sure to console me and announce that all those who for five months, on the first Saturdays, go to confession, receive Communion, say five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for 15 minutes meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the purpose of making reparation to Me, I promise to assist them at the hour of death with all the graces necessary for the salvation of their souls.”
Can we keep that commitment to prioritize an appointment with Mary on first Saturdays, starting with five, perhaps beyond five. Can we prioritize the Mass and confession on those days? Can we pray the Rosary as the shepherd children did and meditation for 15 minutes on the mysteries?
To pray the Rosary every day
This is a commitment to enter into Mary’s school not occasionally, but daily, to immerse ourselves with her in the mysteries of her Son’s life, to look at those mysteries from her perspective. The Rosary is a compendium of the Gospel. We see in those mysteries light for our life and the life of others. Annunciation. Visitation. Nativity. Presentation. Finding. Baptism. Cana. Kingdom and Conversion. Transfiguration. Eucharist. Agony. Scourging. Crowning. Cross. Crucifixion and Death. Resurrection. Ascension. Pentecost. Assumption and Coronation.
Learn to read
This seems like a strange commitment at first compared to the other two, but it’s obvious, retrospectively, that she was needing to learn how to read so that she could likewise write and help spread the message Mary was entrusting.
Most of us don’t need to be asked by our Lady to learn how to read because we have had the privilege of being raised in homes where our parents taught us to read and in schools that built on that training.
But there is a larger focus: are we using our learning, our capacity to read and write, to grow in faith and to help the faith grow in others? Do we read things that expand our soul, our knowledge of the faith, our capacity to spread it? Do we read the Bible? Do we read the writings of the Popes, like Pope Leo’s recent encyclical? Do we read what Sr. Lucia has left us as well as the lives of the saints and good spiritual books? Similarly, do we use our capacity to write to write about the faith, to email or text or handwrite letters to our friends and families, to write articles and blogs, perhaps even books, that can help others come to know Jesus?
Intercession
Lucy asked for the cure of someone who is sick. She was praying for that intention and bringing it to God through our Lady.
We should always be praying for others.
The call to pray and sacrifice for the conversion of sinners must always be accompanied by people’s concrete faces.
Our Lady’s response is telling: “If he is converted, he will be cured during the year.” Our Lady was far more concerned about her son’s conversion than cure. She likely knew that his illness was opening him to prayer, to God, to what God was asking, and that if he was cured physically too soon, he would continue to take his relationship with God for granted. Like with the paralyzed man in the Gospel, the most important thing Jesus could give him was the gift of absolution, not healing of paralysis. Our Lady was training Lucia to pray for the most important stuff first.
We, too, are called to intercede. It’s easy for us to pray for those with cancer diagnoses, or difficult pregnancies, or who are in the ICU. But do we pray for others’ conversions even more fervently? Would we rather than be in intense physical pain but in the state of grace, or would we want them pain free but in the state of sin?
Since Mary was going to be asking them to pray and sacrifice for the conversion of sinners, she needed to help them to learn how to prioritize that conversion.
She likewise wants to help us to make that same prioritization in our intercession. Yes, to pray for physical miracles and healings. But to pray for the more important spiritual ones far more. And when physical cures are given, to make sure that unlike the 9 cured lepers in the Gospel, they come back like the one to thank the Lord who gave that miracle.
Desire for Heaven
It’s very healthy for us to ponder their great desire for heaven.
We remember the conversation one month early, when Mary appeared to them for the first time.
After our Lady said, “I am from Heaven,” and Lucia asked “What do you want of me,” to be told about coming on the 13th for six months, she immediately asked:
“Shall I go to Heaven too?”
“Yes, you will”
“And Jacinta?”
“She will go also.”
“And Francisco?”
“He will go there too, but he must say many Rosaries.”
Then I remembered to ask about two friends who had died recently.
“Is Maria das Neves in Heaven?”
“Yes, she is.”
“And Amélia?”
“She will be in purgatory until the end of the world.”
Lucia, we could say, was laser-beamed on heaven. Her questions were not so much of curiosity but something of huge stakes for her, her cousin and her friends.
On June 13, her desires were even firmer, “I would like to ask you to take us to Heaven.”
Our Lady said, “Yes. I will take Jacinta and Francisco soon. But you are to stay here some time longer. Jesus wishes to make use of you to make me known and loved.
Such a desire for heaven was not a desire to escape from the world or from responsibility. But they desired God. They desired eternity. They desired the saints, like St. Anthony.
It’s important for us to have similar longings for heaven. It was essential for them to be able to receive her message, the following month, about hell, about the rise of atheistic communism, about the ravages of war, about the attacks against the Church, and even about the importance of devotion to Mary’s immaculate heart. Life has great stakes. Heaven and Hell are real, not mythical fancies. What matters most in life is the direction to which we’re heading and whether we get arrive.
Jesus himself to try to stoke that desire with his words on eternal life, the joys of God’s eternal kingdom, the fact that he was going to prepare a place for us and come back again, with the prayer he put on our lips, “Our Father in heaven, thy kingdom come!,” with his words on judgment and what it takes to get to his eternal right side.
Every Mass is supposed to stoke our desire for heaven when we lift up our hearts to the Lord, seeking the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
The celebration of Jesus’ ascension and Mary’s assumption and the feast of the saints like St. Anthony are all meant to help us focus on heaven. The prayer of the Rosary, particularly the glorious mysteries, is supposed to anchor our hearts beyond the cloud and correspond to the world of the Holy Spirit to go on mission to help everyone learn how to do so and to live in this world with our hearts set on the next, on heaven, holiness and eternal happiness, on communion with God and his saints.
Do we ask the question they do? Will I go to heaven? Will my husband or wife, will my boyfriend or girlfriend, will my mom and dad, son and daughter, friends, family members, students, parishioners, enemies, those who serve us in public office, the celebrities on television, the athletes on the sports field, the people who sit next to us on planes, trains and buses, the people stuck in traffic with us, even the people here with us today at the Blue Army Shrine.
Do we have the capacity to say, with Sr. Lucy, “I would like to ask you to take us to Heaven.” That’s obviously what Mary wants. But for her to get what she wants, like with the person for whom Lucy was praying, they need to respond to the grace of conversion.
Life in this world with Mary
For most of us, unlike Francisco would die the following year after many Rosaries, prayers and mortifications, unlike Jacinta who would die in 1920, we will not be taken soon, even though we don’t know the day or the hour. Lucy would come to live another 87 years, dying a month short of her 98th
How are we to live in this world the right way?
Lucy, full of sadness, asked our Lady, “Am I to stay here alone?”
Mary had previously told her that God wanted her to remain to “establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.” And so she replied, “No, my daughter. Are you suffering a great deal? Don’t lose heart. I will never forsake you. My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.”
As she spoke, Our Lady opened her hands from which can rays of immense light that immersed them. They saw themselves in this light as if they were immersed in God. Jacinta and Francisco, Lucia recounted, seemed to be in that part of the light which rose towards Heaven, and Lucia herself in the light that was poured out on the earth. In front of the palm of Our Lady’s right hand was a heart encircled by thorns that pierced it, which they understood to be her Immaculate Heart, wounded by the sins of humanity and seeking reparation for the sins against her Son.
Our Lady revealed to Lucia that she wanted her Heart to be Lucy’s refuge and path, that it would be the way she would live in the light and become a herald of that light on earth. Our Lady wanted to be Lucy’s companion and, as she would reveal the following month, consecration to her Immaculate Heart would be the way Lucy would live in that loving friendship and journey with Mary to the heaven for which she longed. Lucy would indeed experience that accompaniment of our Lady, would live out her consecration, and then, even from the cloister, help establish in the world devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart.
Our Lady similarly wants to accompany us. She wants her heart to be our refuge and compass for our earthly life. She wants us to consecrate ourselves to her and to have us spread devotion to her Immaculate Heart, as the whole Church seeks to do today on the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
So there are five great lessons of June 13, 1917.
Commitment at our Lady’s request
Daily Rosary
The importance of using our ability to read and write for the faith
Intercession
Desire for Heaven
Mary’s luminous accompaniment throughout life on the way to heaven
Spreading and establishing devotion to her Immaculate Heart
I would like to focus in particular on the way someone in particular showed us to live this.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen
On September 24 this year, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, my predecessor for 16 years as National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the USA, will be beatified in St. Louis. I hope you all will be there. Tickets are expected to become available this week.
Two days ago, on June 11, the day on which the US bishops consecrated our country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Orlando, we marked the 75th anniversary of Sheen’s episcopal consecration.
Sheen had a tremendous devotion to our Lady.
As a four-day-old baby, he was consecrated to our Lady by his mother.
He made that consecration his own 12 years later on the day of his first communion.
He referred to her as “The Woman I love.”
And he was a big supporter of this National Blue Army Shrine, founded three years before he became National Director and moved to New York, and was a friend of its founders. When Shrine co-founder John M. Haffert wrote his beautiful work Mary in Her Scapular Promise in 1940, later republished in 1971 as Sign of Her Heart, he asked then Monsignor Sheen to write the preface, which he did. In it Sheen brought us back to the essential importance of Mary in our Catholic faith. He wrote:
“Mary has been constituted by her divine Son as the intermediary between our needs and his wants; such is the roles she played at the Marriage feast of Cana, when she interceded for the needy guests to the miraculous power of her divine Son. It’s a singular fact that in answer to her request, our Lord addressed her, not as Mother, but as woman, as if to imply that once she began interceding for the humanity whom he was about to redeem when ‘the hour’ would come, she entered into a larger relationship than merely that of being his mother, namely, that of ‘Woman,’ the new mother of redeemed men. On the Cross, the title is confirmed again when our Lord addresses her as ‘Woman behold thy Son!’ She had brought forth her first born in the flesh at Bethlehem, now she was to bring for her first born in the spirit at Calvary, namely, John, the beloved disciple. He was the symbol of men whose motherhood Mary purchased at the foot of the cross in union with her divine Son. It’s not by a figure of speech, nor by a metaphor, that Mary is our mother, but rather by virtue of the pangs of childbirth. As a woman can never forget her child of her womb, so neither can Mary forget us!”
When we look at Sheen’s life, we see seven of the characteristics Mary asked of Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta 109 years ago today.
Commitment at our Lady’s request
On the day of his priestly ordination, alongside his famous commitment to make a Eucharistic holy hour each day, he made a similar commitment to celebrate a votive Mass of our Lady every Saturday.
Daily Rosary
He not only prayed the Rosary, but 75 years ago this year, he created the World Mission Rosary to pray the Harvest Master through the intercession of the Queen of the Apostles for the needs of the missions and missionaries across the globe. He became a great apostle of the Holy Rosary, writing meditations and leading people across the world in this prayer.
We will pray this right before his beatification Mass.
Pope Leo in the Central African Republic launched the World Mission Rosary, made out of helium balloons, into the heavens, to show how it leads us to heaven.
The importance of using our ability to read and write for the faith
He was one of the most learned priests in US history, with his agregé from the University of Louvain, Belgium.
He used his formidable mind to get to God through Mary and then his capacity to write to write 66 books, 3 columns a week, and many pamphlets, sermons, texts for his radio and television programs and more.
Intercession
He prayed often for the conversion of the world.
He urged to be priests and victims, offering themselves together with Christ for the conversion and salvation of others.
Desire for Heaven
He had a huge hunger for heaven and helped others to calibrate their heart toward heaven.
Mary’s luminous accompaniment throughout life on the way to heaven
When he was consecrated a bishop, he chose as his motto, “Da per matrem me venire,” “Grant that I may come to you through your mother.”
He wanted to do everything through his consecration to her, including come to heaven.
He said that when he died, he hoped our Lord would say to him, “My mother has told me about you!”
Spreading and establishing devotion to her Immaculate Heart
Of all 66 of his books, he said his favorite was his 1954 book, “The World’s First Love,” about Mary, in which he wrote extensively about the importance of Fatima. He wrote about her so that many could come to God through her.
In it, he wrote extensively about the meaning of her Immaculate Conception and how, through devotion to her heart, we could learn how to seek purity and holiness of heart.
He likewise supported the establishment of this Shrine and its founders.
For all these reasons, soon to be Blessed Fulton Sheen is a good model for us about how to respond to Mary’s summons. During this time in which we prepare for his beatification, let’s ask his intercession so that we might make Our Lady of Fatima the woman we love, and like the pastorinhos and like Sheen, commit and consecrate ourselves to what Our Lady asks, to grow in daily love for her and the blessed fruit of her womb through the Rosary, to use all our learning to become better disciples and apostles, to intercede constantly for our own and others’ conversion and salvation, to hunger more and more for heaven, to recognize with gratitude her accompaniment through life, and to help establish ever firmly devotion to her immaculate heart, for which we now prepare to thank God at Mass on her feast.

The post Mary’s Immaculate Heart: Our Refuge and Our Way, Celebration of the Second Fatima Apparition, June 13, 2026 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
37 min
June 14Consecration Ourselves to Mary’s Heart and Jesus’, Immaculate Heart of Mary, June 13, 2026
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Blue Army Shrine, Ashbury, NJ
109th Anniversary Celebration of the Second Apparition of Our Lady of Fatima
Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
June 13, 2026
Jud 13:17-20.15:9, Lk 1:46-55, Lk 2:41-51

To watch a video of the talk, please click below:

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.13.26_Consecration_to_Marys_Heart_and_Jesus_1.mp3

The following text guided the homily:
In 1969 Saint Pope Paul VI moved the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary from August 22 to the day immediately after the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart in order to highlight the connection between the two great feasts. Two days ago, the Bishops of the United States consecrated our country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and yesterday, together with our brothers and sisters throughout the world, we celebrated the solemnity of Jesus’ Sacred Heart. We prayed with devotion on both days, with words taken from Jesus’ words in Matthew 11, “O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make our hearts like unto thine.”
The truth is, if we wish to have a heart like Jesus’, if we wish to have our beloved country as we mark its 250thbirthday learn anew how to love with the divine and human fire that burned in the heart of Jesus, we need to turn to Mary, from whom Jesus received his human heart, and learn from her how to respond to the love of Jesus’ heart and be transformed by it. The beat of Mary’s heart was the first thing Jesus heard as soon as his human ears began to function. Hers is the heart that most received and best reflects her Son’s love. The Memorial of Mary’s Immaculate Heart is a day on which we seek not only to admire her, not only to imitate her, but to enter into her loving relationship with her Son. If we wish not just to make but live well a consecration to Jesus’ Sacred Heart, the shortest and surest path is through consecration to Mary’s immaculate heart. Her heart is the most similar to his. Her heart, and her whole life, body, mind and soul, were totally cut off from worldliness to be fully his. Today we say, with St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort’s prayer of consecration that St. John Paul II used to pray this every morning, “Praebe mihi cor tuum, O Maria!,” “Give me your heart, O Mary!,” so that with you, I may receive, remain in, delight in, and spread the love of the heart of Jesus!
It was 109 years ago today, on June 13, 1917, that Mary first revealed to Sister Lucia that she wanted her to remain in the world because she was His chosen instrument “to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.” It was on June 13, 1917 that Mary promised her, “My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.” And it would be the next month that Mary would speak specifically of consecration to her immaculate heart.
We remember the context. She showed 7-year-old Jacinta, 9-year-old Francisco and 10-year-old Lucia a vision of hell where poor sinners go. She gave them a glimpse of the destruction that would come from atheistic communism. She had permitted them to see how much the Church would suffer, with a vast city of Christian corpses and even a bishop in white assassinated. After these visions, Our Lady said to them, “You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to myImmaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.” Our Lady went on specifically to request that Russia — which in 1917 was experiencing the beginning of the Bolshevik revolution — be consecrated to her Immaculate Heart, lest Russian communism “spread its errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church.” Atheistic communism, for our Lady, was not a neutral political system, but a violent conceptual attack on God and on those made in his image that would bring incalculable harm, as we saw over the course of the 20th century.
But we have to ask what it means to consecrate ourselves, or particular countries, or the world to Mary’s Immaculate Heart? It means first and fundamentally to entrust ourselves to Our Lady, to belong to her, to enter into a covenant with her. At a deeper level, consecration to her “immaculate heart” means to beg her to help make our heart like hers, since Jesus declares that “the pure of heart shall see God” (Mt 5:8). The future Pope Benedict, commenting in 2000 on Mary’s message in Fatima, said that Mary’s is a “heart that, with God’s grace, has come to perfect interior unity and therefore ‘sees God.’ To be ‘devoted’ to the Immaculate Heart of Mary means therefore to embrace this attitude of heart, which makes the fiat—‘your will be done’—the defining center of one’s whole life.” Mary wants us to have such a heart. Jesus wants us to have such a heart.
Today we contemplate her heart, a heart that was full of grace because it was full of God. It was a heart full of thanksgiving, one that, as we see in the Magnificat today that was the response to the first reading that pronounced her “the highest honor of our race,” Mary proclaimed that her heart, soul and spirit rejoiced in God’s greatness and salvation. Her’s was a contemplative heart that, as we heard at the end of today’s Gospel, “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.” The Greek words St. Luke uses about her heart at the Nativity and in the Finding of the Temple — syntereo and symballo — which mean that she cherished in her heart the words that came to her from God and pieced them together like a priceless mosaic, a treasure that kept paying out dividends within her, pondering God’s word so profoundly that that word could take on her flesh.
One of the best meditations on Mary’s immaculate heart and one of the best ways to learn from it is the Preface of the Votive Mass of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which we will pray later in today’s Mass. It’s from the most beautiful liturgical book in the Latin Rite: the Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It gives us eight adjectives that describe her heart and chart for us the path to a heart like hers. The Preface reads: “You gave the Blessed Virgin Mary a wise and obedient heart, that she might perfectly carry out your will, a new and gentle heart, in which you were well pleased and on which you inscribed the law of the New Covenant. You gave her an undivided and pure heart that she might be worthy to be the Virgin Mother of your Son and to rejoice to see you forever. You gave her a steadfast and watchful heart, so that she could endure without fear the sword of sorrow and await in faith the resurrection of her Son.” We can briefly ponder each of the attributes, which refer to the type of heart she wants us to have:
Wise — Her heart was like the young Solomon’s, because pondering and treasuring everything as pieces of a mosaic within. It was wise because it was filled with God’s wisdom.
Obedient — Her heart hears the word of God and keeps it, perpetually saying fiat. When the anonymous woman from the crowd screamed to Jesus, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you,” he, even though no woman’s womb or breasts were ever as blessed as Mary’s because of their association with him, upped the ante in his praise saying, “Blessed, rather, are they who hear the word of God and observe it.” Mary’s real beatitude came from her holy obedience that lived in complete harmony with God’s will and whose whole life developed according to her response to Gabriel, “Let it be done to me according to your word.” Wisdom that allows us to see things as God does, and obedience that helps us to live that wisdom, is what allows us “perfectly [to] carry out [God’s] will.”
New — In her heart we see the fulfillment of God’s promises through Ezekiel to give us a new heart, taking away our stony hearts and giving us hearts of flesh, hearts that beat in love.
Gentle — Her heart was one that learned from her Son, who says, “Learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart.” The freshness and meekness of a heart like Mary’s pleases God, as the Preface says, and is the proper writing material for the Holy Spirit upon which inscribe the new law.
Undivided — From the moment her immaculate heart first formed in St. Anne’s womb, it sought above all God’s kingdom as the pearl of great price worth everything else. Hers was an unbroken echo chamber of an Amen to all God’s desires.
Pure — The pure of heart see God, as Jesus mentions in the Beatitudes, and her heart did, because there was no room in it for sin. The untainted eyes of her heart allowed her to see God in her Son growing within her from his first moments and to rejoice in him.
Steadfast — Her heart persevered through vicissitudes. It loved on despite being pierced so many times. At the Presentation, Simeon foretold that her own heart would be pierced on account of her Son’s being a sign that would be contradicted. That heart was pierced when Herod sought to assassinate him, when they needed to flee to Egypt, when her fellow Nazarenes tried to hurl him to his death, when so many rejected him during his public ministry, when the mobs chose Barabbas, when she saw him mocked, scourged, condemned, crucified and killed. But her heart didn’t give up. She kept loving to and through the Cross. She kept standing, loving right alongside her Son.
Vigilant — Her heart waited for her Son’s resurrection with faith and hope and awaits our responding to God’s graces until we, by God’s mercy, come to be with her forever. Her steadfastness allowed her to ensure the sword of sorrow without fear and to remain alert for her Son at all times.
That’s the type of heart that Mary wants us to have and to imitate. That’s the heart that will fulfill the prayer we made Thursday and yesterday when we begged for a heart like her Son’s. That’s the heart we seek when, consecrating ourselves to her, we say, “Give me your heart, O Mary.”
There’s one adjective that’s not found in that eight word Litany, but it’s one that summarizes not just Jesus’ Sacred Heart, but Mary’s Immaculate Heart. It’s the word Eucharistic. When Jesus revealed to St. Margaret Mary the love of his burning and crucified heart, he referred to the Eucharist as the sacramentum caritatis, the efficacious sign of his love. Mary’s heart is similarly Eucharistic. It was kept pure from the first moment of her existence in the womb of her mother St. Anne so that it would be able to be conformed to the heart the Son she would virginally conceive at the Annunciation and receive with just as much faith and love from the hands of St. Peter, St. John, and the other apostles in the early Church. To consecrate ourselves to her Immaculate Heart is to entrust ourselves to her consecrated Eucharistic Heart, which beats in unison with the Sacred Eucharistic heart of Jesus.
Saint John Paul II, in his beautiful 2003 encyclical on the Eucharist, Ecclesia de Eucaristia, said that the Immaculate Virgin “can guide us towards this most holy sacrament, because she herself has a profound relationship with it.” The Church, he said, not only “looks to Mary as a model” but “is also called to imitate her in her relationship with this most holy mystery.” She, he said, is a “woman of the Eucharist in her whole life. … In a certain sense Mary lived herEucharistic faith even before the institution of the Eucharist, by the very fact that she offered her virginal womb for the Incarnation of God’s Word. … At the Annunciation Mary conceived the Son of God in the physical reality of his body and blood, thus anticipating within herself what to some degree happens sacramentally in every believer who receives, under the signs of bread and wine, the Lord’s body and blood.” Her fiat in reply to the Archangel Gabriel, he said, is profoundly analogous to the “Amen that every believer says when receiving the body of the Lord. … In continuity with the Virgin’s faith, in the Eucharistic mystery we are asked to believe that the same Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Mary, becomes present in his full humanity and divinity under the signs of bread and wine.” At the Incarnation, she also “became in some way a ‘tabernacle’ — the first ‘tabernacle’ in history’ in which the Son of God, still invisible to our human gaze, allowed himself to be adored,” first by Mary, then by St. Elizabeth and St. John the Baptist. Her “enraptured gaze … as she contemplated the face of the newborn Christ and cradled him in her arms” is, John Paul says, an “unparalleled model of love which should inspire us every time we receive Eucharistic communion.” When Simeon at the Presentation prophesied not only that her Son would be a sign of contradiction for the rise and ruin of many in Israel but that her own heart would be pierced, she experienced from that point forward, John Paul prayerfully notes, a “daily preparation for Calvary” and “a kind of anticipated Eucharist – one might say a ‘spiritual communion’ – of desire and of oblation, which would culminate in her union with her Son in his passion” and death. After the Resurrection, she would have participated in the celebrations of the Eucharist in the Upper Room and with St. John who after Golgotha had taken her into his home. As she said to the servants in Cana, so Mary doubtless encouraged her apostolic sons, “Do whatever he tells you,”as they obediently repeated what Christ said and did at the Last Supper, “Do this in memory of me!”
John Paul poignantly asks, “What must Mary have felt as she heard from the mouth of Peter, John, James and the other Apostles the words spoken at the Last Supper: ‘This is my body which is given for you’ (Lk22:19)? The body given up for us and made present under sacramental signs,” he notes, “was the same body that she had conceived in her womb! For Mary, receiving the Eucharist must have somehow meant welcoming once more into her womb that heart which had beat in unison with hers and reliving what she had experienced at the foot of the Cross.” That’s why he encourages each of us to enroll ourselves in the “school” of Mary and allow her, the “woman of the Eucharist” to teach us how to approach the celebration of the Mass a heart like hers, training us in authentic Eucharistic spirituality so that we might in turn become conformed to the sacred Eucharistic heart of the blessed Fruit of her womb. She is, as Pope Benedict would say about her later, the “singular model of the eucharistic life” who shows us how to become men and women of the Eucharist and of the Church” and ultimately, in the words of Saint Paul, ‘holy and immaculate’ before Him (cf. Col 1:22; Eph 1:4).
At this Mass, on her Memorial, as we consecrate ourselves anew to her immaculate heart, we enter her school begging her to help us obtain a heart wise, obedient, new, gentle, undivided, pure, vigilant, steadfast, immaculate and Eucharistic like hers, so that we might relive her mystery in Christ her Son as with enraptured gaze we behold him, become a tabernacle for him, united ourselves with him interiorly, seek to bring him with love and haste to others, and faithfully and joyfully do whatever he tells us. This is the surest and safest path to live out our consecration to the Sacred Heart and help our country, as we celebrate our 250th birthday, as Mary is praying for us to do.
The readings for this Mass were:
A Reading from the Book of Judith. All the people were greatly astonished. They bowed down and worshiped God, saying with one accord, “Blessed are you, our God, who today have brought to nought the enemies of your people.” Then Uzziah said to her: “Blessed are you, daughter, by the Most High God, above all the women on earth; and blessed be the Lord God, the creator of heaven and earth, who guided your blow at the head of the chief of our enemies. Your deed of hope will never be forgotten by those who tell of the might of God. May God make this redound to your everlasting honor, rewarding you with blessings, because you risked your life when your people were being oppressed, and you averted our disaster, walking uprightly before our God.” And all the people answered, “Amen! Amen!” When they had visited her, all with one accord blessed her, saying: “You are the glory of Jerusalem, the surpassing joy of Israel; You are the splendid boast of our people.
You Are the Highest Honor of our Race
And Mary said: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is from age to age to those who fear him. He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke
Each year his parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom. After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them. He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart.
The post Consecration Ourselves to Mary’s Heart and Jesus’, Immaculate Heart of Mary, June 13, 2026 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
25 min
May 30 Growing Disciples through Generosity, General Assembly of The Pontifical Mission Societies, May 30, 2026
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
General Assembly of The Pontifical Mission Societies
Collegio San Lorenzo da Brindisi, Rome
May 30, 2026

To listen to an audio recording of today’s conference, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.30.26_TPMS_General_Assembly_Growing_Disciples_through_Generosity_1.mp3

To download a copy of the PDF of today’s talk, please click below:
5.30.26 Growing Disciples Through Generosity

The post Growing Disciples through Generosity, General Assembly of The Pontifical Mission Societies, May 30, 2026 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
26 min
May 24Receiving and Being Sealed by the Holy Spirit, Pentecost Sunday (A), May 24, 2026
Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY
Pentecost Sunday 2026
May 24, 2026
Acts 2:1-11, Ps 104, 1 Cor 12:3-7.12-13, Jn 20:19-23
To listen to a recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.24.26_Homily_1.mp3

The following text guided the homily:
Today we celebrate with gratitude the gift of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church and in your life and mine. With the words of the Sequence we just sang, we ask him to come anew from heaven as a blessed light for our hearts, guest of our soul, providential father, giver of charisms, solace and consoler, rest and refreshment. We ask him to help us to do good, to purify, water, heal, soften, correct and ignite, to give us anew his seven gifts, help us grow in virtue, to lead us to salvation and eternal joy. We beg him to fill us with the gifts of knowledge, understanding, wisdom, prudence, reverence, awe and courage, as well as with the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-mastery. We ask him to fill our hearts, enkindle the fire of his love, recreate us and renew the whole world.
Jesus’ whole life, which revealed God the Father’s saving love and made it efficacious, was to prepare the faithful for the coming of the Holy Spirit who would help make us participants in Jesus’ new and eternal Passover. During the Last Supper, Jesus spoke repeatedly about the Holy Spirit, how he would be another Advocate, convict us and the world of sin, justice and condemnation, remind us of everything Jesus had taught and lead us to all truth, and how, astonishingly, it was better for Jesus to go so that the Holy Spirit would come to us. The first taste of that gift was on Easter Sunday night, as we see in today’s Gospel, when Jesus breathed on the apostles and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Later, at his Ascension, Jesus told them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the “promise of the Father” about which they had heard him speak, for “in a few days,” he continued, “you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” They were going to be fully immersed in the Holy Spirit. The apostles and the other followers of Jesus returned to the Upper Room and very wisely huddled around Mary to learn from the one who was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit at Jesus’ virginal conception and who continually lived as a Spouse of the Holy Spirit how to get ready to receive the “promise of the Father” and respond to his action. And after ten days of prayer, the Holy Spirit came in the form of strong driving wind and as tongues of fire that rested upon each of them. They received the Holy Spirit and, as St. Paul wrote later to the Ephesians, were “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,” which he said was “the first installment of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s possession” (Eph 1:13-14; 4:30).
By the Sacrament of Confirmation, we have all been baptized in, we have all been sealed with, the Holy Spirit. Yesterday I celebrated the 40th anniversary of my Confirmation, when now Archbishop Alfred Hughes, former auxiliary bishop of Boston and emeritus Archbishop of New Orleans, made the sign of the Cross on my forehead with sacred chrism and said, “Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.” He used the name I had chosen — Deodatus, “given to God” — and prepared me for my Christian vocation and mission. Yesterday, as I was marking that awesome day in preparation for Pentecost, I meditated on the Rite of Confirmation, which actualizes what happened to the Church in the Upper Room. It teaches us about how we’re called to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The bishop, or with delegation the priest, first asks us all to pray, “Dearly beloved, let us pray to God the almighty Father, for these, his adopted sons and daughters, already born again to eternal life in Baptism, that he will graciously pour out the Holy Spirit upon them to confirm them with his abundant gifts, and through his anointing conform them more fully to Christ, the Son of God.” The purpose of the Sacrament of Confirmation, of the Holy Spirit’s work in us, is to make us more and more like Jesus. Then the bishop extends his hands and continues the prayer, joined silently by all the priests present: “Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who brought these servants to new birth by water and the Holy Spirit, freeing them from sin: send upon them, O Lord, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete; give them the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and piety; fill them with the spirit of fear of the Lord. Through Christ our Lord.” The Holy Spirit perfects the new birth in baptism and seeks to make us like Christ wise and understanding, prudent and knowledgeable, courageous, reverent and full of awe. Then the bishop seals us with that gift of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, with all his gifts, to conform us to Christ.
What’s the impact of receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit? Sacred Scripture mentions many.
First, he seeks to make us his Temple, to dwell in us and be in us (1 Cor 6:19-20; Jn 14:17).
Second, he helps us to pray. Paul says that the Holy Spirit comes “to the aid of our weakness for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes for us” (Rom 8:26). He continues that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words, helping us to cry out “Abba, Father!” and pray as beloved sons and daughters (Rom 8:15).
Third, he helps us to live for God. St. Paul tells us in his letters to the Galatians and Romans that there are two basic ways to live, to live according to the Spirit or to live according to the flesh (Gal 5; Rom 8). To live by the Spirit means that we’re constantly seeking what God the Holy Spirit seeks. To live by the flesh means to place our heart, our treasure, in the things of this world, in money and material possessions, in carnal pleasures, in fame, power, influence, in superficialities. The Holy Spirit wants to renew us by helping us to put to death in us whatever lives by the flesh so that we may totally live by his inspiration, his in-breathing, as Mary and the apostles after Pentecost did, and as the saints have across the centuries.
Fourth, as St. Paul indicates in today’s second reading, he gives each of us a “manifestation of the Spirit” for the good of the Church and the world. We have all received certain charisms, “different forms of service” and “different workings” necessary to make Christ’s Body the Church strong. The Holy Spirit wants to help us to recognize what our gifts are and, just as importantly, to use them to build up the Church both locally and universally.
But what I want to focus on most is the missionary impact of the Holy Spirit’s gift. He is given to us to help us to complete Jesus’ mission. Jesus promised, “When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, … you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Later, when the apostles gave that testimony, publicly affirming under trial, “We are witnesses of these things, as is the holy Spirit that God has given to those who obey him” (Acts 5:32). Immediately before Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit on the apostles on Easter night, he said, “Just as the Father sent me, so I send you.” The Holy Spirit was coming upon them for mission. That is similarly underlined in St. Luke’s account of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit came under two forms. The first was a strong, driving wind, capable of pushing them into deep water, across the seas, to far away lands. The second was as tongues of fire, so that they might proclaim the Gospel with ardent love. We then see how the Holy Spirit helped simple, thickly-accented men like Peter and the apostles speak powerfully and effectively in front of vast crowds. Everything the Holy Spirit gives is meant ultimately to transform us for mission. He leads us to truth and reminds us of everything Jesus taught so that we might help others come to accept Jesus as the Truth and follow him. He convicts us of sin, righteousness and condemnation so that we might help others repent and believe. He gives us his seven-fold gifts and our particular manifestations of the Spirit so that we might be competent ambassadors. He helps us to pray so that we can lead the world to pray. He makes us his temple and fills us with his fruit so that, even before we open our mouth, we are able to proclaim that God is real, that he’s with us, that he’s transforming us, just as he seeks to bless them. He seals us so that we may be marked permanently by his presence and his work.
Pentecost is, therefore, not just the celebration of the Church’s birth but the annual day on which we remember that the Church does not have a mission but is a mission. Pentecost involves not just receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, but, impelled by the Spirit, with tongues of fire, it means leaving the Upper Room, going forth into the crowds, impelled by a strong driving wind, to share the treasure of our faith. Every Pentecost, transformed by the Holy Spirit, we go out anew, as missionaries, as witnesses, together with the Holy Spirit, who, conforming us to Christ, seeks to renew and transform each person in the world.
That work begins at Mass. Pope Benedict once said, “The Eucharist is a ‘perpetual Pentecost’ since every time we celebrate Mass we receive the Holy Spirit who unites us more deeply with Christ and transforms us into Him.” It’s during Mass that in the epiclesis we call down the Holy Spirit upon the priest and the altar totally to change bread and wine into Jesus’ body and blood, and then, after the consecration, we call him down anew to change men and women into Christ’s mystical body. To receive the Holy Spirit and be sealed by him means to allow him to do this work, to cooperate with the miraculous metamorphosis the Spirit wants to do in us as we receive Jesus. The Holy Spirit wants to seal us with this gift and then, at the end of the Mass, to send us forth on a permanent mission proclaiming the Gospel of the Lord. This is the completion of the Easter Season and the fulfillment of all God’s work. May we respond like Mary and the Apostles did on the day the Church was born.

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading I
Acts 2:1-11
When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled,
they were all in one place together.
And suddenly there came from the sky
a noise like a strong driving wind,
and it filled the entire house in which they were.
Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire,
which parted and came to rest on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak in different tongues,
as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem.
At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd,
but they were confused
because each one heard them speaking in his own language.
They were astounded, and in amazement they asked,
“Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans?
Then how does each of us hear them in his native language?
We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites,
inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia,
Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,
Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene,
as well as travelers from Rome,
both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs,
yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues
of the mighty acts of God.”
Responsorial Psalm
104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34
R. (cf. 30) Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Bless the LORD, O my soul!
O LORD, my God, you are great indeed!
How manifold are your works, O LORD!
the earth is full of your creatures.
R. Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
or:
R. Alleluia.
May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
may the LORD be glad in his works!
Pleasing to him be my theme;
I will be glad in the LORD.
R. Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
or:
R. Alleluia.
If you take away their breath, they perish
and return to their dust.
When you send forth your spirit, they are created,
and you renew the face of the earth.
R. Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Reading II
1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13
Brothers and sisters:
No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.
There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit;
there are different forms of service but the same Lord;
there are different workings but the same God
who produces all of them in everyone.
To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit
is given for some benefit.
As a body is one though it has many parts,
and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body,
so also Christ.
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,
whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons,
and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.

Sequence
Veni, Sancte Spiritus
Come, Holy Spirit, come!
And from your celestial home
Shed a ray of light divine!
Come, Father of the poor!
Come, source of all our store!
Come, within our bosoms shine.
You, of comforters the best;
You, the soul’s most welcome guest;
Sweet refreshment here below;
In our labor, rest most sweet;
Grateful coolness in the heat;
Solace in the midst of woe.
O most blessed Light divine,
Shine within these hearts of yours,
And our inmost being fill!
Where you are not, we have naught,
Nothing good in deed or thought,
Nothing free from taint of ill.
Heal our wounds, our strength renew;
On our dryness pour your dew;
Wash the stains of guilt away:
Bend the stubborn heart and will;
Melt the frozen, warm the chill;
Guide the steps that go astray.
On the faithful, who adore
And confess you, evermore
In your sevenfold gift descend;
Give them virtue’s sure reward;
Give them your salvation, Lord;
Give them joys that never end. Amen.
Alleluia.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful
and kindle in them the fire of your love.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jn 20:19-23
On the evening of that first day of the week,
when the doors were locked, where the disciples were,
for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained.”
The post Receiving and Being Sealed by the Holy Spirit, Pentecost Sunday (A), May 24, 2026 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
19 min

About Catholic Preaching

From the publisher's feed

Father Roger J. Landry is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, who works for the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations in New York.