Catholic Preaching

By Father Roger LandryReligion & Spirituality Christianity

Catholic Preaching episodes

June 09, 2024 How the Stronger Man Strengthens Us For the Eucharistic Pilgrimage of Life, St. Patrick’s Church, Washington, DC, June 8, 2024
Fr. Roger Landry
St. Patrick’s Church, Washington DC
Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
Gen 3:9-15, Ps 130, 1 Cor 4:13-5:1, Mt 3:20-35

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
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The readings for today’s Mass are:
Reading 1
Gn 3:9-15
After the man, Adam, had eaten of the tree,
the LORD God called to the man and asked him, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden;
but I was afraid, because I was naked,
so I hid myself.”
Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked?
You have eaten, then,
from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!”
The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with me—
she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.”
The LORD God then asked the woman,
“Why did you do such a thing?”
The woman answered, “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.”
Then the LORD God said to the serpent:
“Because you have done this, you shall be banned
from all the animals
and from all the wild creatures;
on your belly shall you crawl,
and dirt shall you eat
all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike at your head,
while you strike at his heel.”
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 130:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
R. (7bc) With the Lord there is mercy, and fullness of redemption.
Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;
LORD, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to my voice in supplication.
R. With the Lord there is mercy, and fullness of redemption.
If you, O LORD, mark iniquities,
LORD, who can stand?
But with you is forgiveness,
that you may be revered.
R. With the Lord there is mercy, and fullness of redemption.
I trust in the LORD;
my soul trusts in his word.
More than sentinels wait for the dawn,
let Israel wait for the LORD.
R. With the Lord there is mercy, and fullness of redemption.
For with the LORD is kindness
and with him is plenteous redemption
and he will redeem Israel
from all their iniquities.
R. With the Lord there is mercy, and fullness of redemption.
Reading 2
2 Cor 4:13—5:1
Brothers and sisters:
Since we have the same spirit of faith,
according to what is written, I believed, therefore I spoke,
we too believe and therefore we speak,
knowing that the one who raised the Lord Jesus
will raise us also with Jesus
and place us with you in his presence.
Everything indeed is for you,
so that the grace bestowed in abundance on more and more people
may cause the thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God.
Therefore, we are not discouraged;
rather, although our outer self is wasting away,
our inner self is being renewed day by day.
For this momentary light affliction
is producing for us an eternal weight of glory
beyond all comparison,
as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen;
for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.
For we know that if our earthly dwelling, a tent,
should be destroyed,
we have a building from God,
a dwelling not made with hands, eternal in heaven.
Alleluia
Jn 12:31b-32
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Now the ruler of the world will be driven out, says the Lord;
and when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Mk 3:20-35
Jesus came home with his disciples.
Again the crowd gathered,
making it impossible for them even to eat.
When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him,
for they said, “He is out of his mind.”
The scribes who had come from Jerusalem said,
“He is possessed by Beelzebul,”
and “By the prince of demons he drives out demons.”
Summoning them, he began to speak to them in parables,
“How can Satan drive out Satan?
If a kingdom is divided against itself,
that kingdom cannot stand.
And if a house is divided against itself,
that house will not be able to stand.
And if Satan has risen up against himself
and is divided, he cannot stand;
that is the end of him.
But no one can enter a strong man’s house to plunder his property
unless he first ties up the strong man.
Then he can plunder the house.
Amen, I say to you,
all sins and all blasphemies that people utter will be
forgiven them.
But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit
will never have forgiveness,
but is guilty of an everlasting sin.”
For they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”
His mother and his brothers arrived.
Standing outside they sent word to him and called him.
A crowd seated around him told him,
“Your mother and your brothers and your sisters
are outside asking for you.”
But he said to them in reply,
“Who are my mother and my brothers?”
And looking around at those seated in the circle he said,
“Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of God
is my brother and sister and mother.”
The post How the Stronger Man Strengthens Us For the Eucharistic Pilgrimage of Life, St. Patrick’s Church, Washington, DC, June 8, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
26 min
June 08, 2024Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, June 8, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, B, Vigil
June 8, 2024

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below:
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The following text guided the homily:
This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday, when we return to the Sundays of Ordinary Time in which Jesus describes for us the wok of the devil, Christ’s own response to him, and what he wants our response to be.
In the Gospel, various of Jesus’ cousins came to seize him, claiming, “He is out of his mind.” They evidently couldn’t understand why he would leave his job in Nazareth, surround himself by a bunch of fishermen, tax collectors, zealots and others, and preach in such a way that many of the religious leaders of the time — the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and eventually high priests — would turn on him to have him killed. No one could deny his miracles and exorcisms, but some of the scribes accused him of doing his work through black magic, casting out the little demons, we could say, by the power of the great demon. The evil one had gotten Jesus’ critics, even some of his relatives, to begin to believe the lie that Jesus’ work was diabolical rather than divine. Jesus answered them quite clearly, cutting to the heart of the devil’s technique of dividing and conquering: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand.” The devil is a divider, Jesus is saying, and would never permit his infernal kingdom to be divided because then his plans would be defeated. He would never turn his principal weapon against himself. Just as he did with Adam and Eve, the devil continues to try to work his plan of division, to divide us from God through sin, to divide us from others, to divide husbands and wives, to divide families, to divide countries into terrible partisanship, to divide the Church into various labels like liberals and conservatives, social justice versus pro-life Catholics, to divide us on music, to divide us on which priests we prefer, to divide us any and every way he can. Jesus prayed during the Last Supper that we might be one, just as He and the Father are one. The devil seeks to make us a bunch of isolated, unhappy monads, like we see the devils divulge in a possessed man elsewhere in the Gospel, who said, “We are legion, for there are many of us.”
But Jesus is stronger than the devil. He came into this world as the “Stronger Man,” to use his phrase from this Sunday’s Gospel, to bind the “strong man” of the devil and divide his spoils. In the Alleluia verse before the Gospel, we will sing about how he does so: “Now the ruler of the world will be driven out,” Jesus says, and “when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself” (Jn 12:31-32). Jesus exorcises the devil by his crucifixion, when he was lifted up on Calvary, but in the very same action of expelling the devil he is attracting us to himself.
To defeat the devil, Jesus wants to draw us to him in three ways.
The first is through repentance and mercy. In the middle of this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus talks about the unforgivable sin, telling us, “All sins and blasphemies that people utter will be forgiven them, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an everlasting sin.” What is this sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes that it is impenitence, which means either a failure to recognize our need for God’s mercy, or to think God has the power to forgive our sins, or to repent and come to receive his mercy. “There are no limits to the mercy of God,” the Catechism declares in paragraph 1864, “but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit.” The only sin God won’t forgive is, in essence, a sin we won’t allow him to forgive, because we, like the devil, seek to hold on to our sin rather than let him take away our sins and those of the world. So the first response we need to have is a great love for the Sacrament of Penance by which Jesus, the Stronger Man, binds the devil and divides his spoils, allowing us to begin anew to be free.
The second response is by associating ourselves with Our Lady. We remember from the Genesis account of original sin that God said to the devil, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers.” He describes the scorn that Jesus and his mother Mary — whom Jesus would repeatedly call “Woman,” because on Calvary he would make her the Mother of all the Living — would have for the slithering serpent. On Saturday the Church celebrated the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary and we were able to celebrate how her heart was full of God and free of sin. Immaculate literally means without stain. From the first moment of her life, in her Immaculate Conception, she had this total enmity for the evil one and she wants us to have the same. Our second response to the devil and his desire to divide us from God, others and within ourselves, is to entrust ourselves to our Lady, to her prayers, and to ask her to help us have that same scorn for the devil, all his evil works and all his empty promises.
The third response is obedience to God. In this Sunday’s Gospel, when the crowd said to Jesus, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters — his male and female cousins, because there’s no distinction in the terms for relatives in the spoken Aramaic of Jesus’ day — are outside asking for you,” he said that his mother, brothers and sisters are comprised of “whoever does the will of God.” This wasn’t a put-down of Mary, but Jesus’ greatest praise. Mary was one whose whole life can be defined by her response to the Archangel Gabriel at the Annunciation, “Let it be done to me according to your word.” Her whole life was a fiat, an amen, a yes. And she seeks to help us to respond to the Lord in this way. We know that the devil’s great theme song is “Non serviam!,” I will not serve, I will not obey. He seeks to bring us from distrust, to disobedience, to disunity, to definitive self-alienation or hell. The response of a Christian is “Serviam!,” the desire to hear the Word of God always as words to be lived. It’s to say, “Yes!” to God, not “No!” Jesus came from heaven to earth to found a family, a functional family, all of whom seek to help each other to put God’s saving word into practice, to do to follow his example, to love one another as he has loved us first.
Ultimately to put into practice his command during the Last Supper to do “this” in memory of him. Especially during this ongoing Eucharistic Revival, it’s key to grasp how the Mass is a great means to live the realities Jesus is describing in this Sunday’s Gospel. In the Eucharist, Jesus is indeed “out of his mind” in two senses. First, he was out of his mind by acting in a way in contravention of worldly logic. He was out of his mind to leave heaven and take on our humanity. He was out of his mind to allow himself to be rejected and ultimately murdered by his creatures. But he’s out of his mind most in humbly hiding himself under the appearances of bread and wine. The expression, “out of his mind,” in the Greek, means more precisely “out of himself,” and in the Holy Eucharist Jesus indeed is not thinking about himself at all but about us. In the Eucharist, we receive him, the self-identified Stronger Man, in the shocking appearance of humility and weakness, but it’s through our holy communion with him that he seeks to make us, in all our weaknesses, strong in him. He does so by helping us to embrace the Cross by which he defeated the devil and divided his spoils. To pick up an instrument of crucifixion would make us seem out of our minds, but we know with St. Paul that the cross is indeed the power and wisdom of God, the source of strength and knowledge, because it makes it possible for us to love. We also know that by means of our holy communion with him, Jesus seeks to make us — the Church, his Mystical Body and Bride — truly strong in unity, as we pray at Mass, “one Body, one Spirit, in Christ.” That’s why the devil hates the Mass so much and tries to divide us even in our approach to the sacred liturgy, having us focus more on the language we use, the orientation of the altar, the posture with which we receive Holy Communion more than we do the Word of God and adoringly and lovingly receiving the Word made Flesh. It’s in the celebration of the most holy Eucharist that we cry out for God’s mercy, saying “I confess,” and “Kyrie, eleison,” turning to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and asking him to have mercy on us and grant us peace. It’s in Mass that we pray together with Mary and the whole Church as we listen attentively to the Word of God, obediently acting on what Jesus told us to do, “doing this in memory” of him not just by celebrating Mass but learning from his self-giving how to say to others, this is my body, this is my blood, this is my sweat, these are my tears, given out of love for you. At Mass is where the whole Church prays as a family, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” This is where Jesus, the Stronger Man, wants to draw us to him in his Passion, bind within us whatever seeks to harm us, and fill us with himself.
As you hear this, I will be on Day 22 of the 65-day National Eucharistic Pilgrimage and will have Mass followed by a Eucharistic procession at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, which is, I believe, the most beautiful and comprehensive Church built to the Blessed Mother in the world. Please know of my prayers for you there, as we pilgrims, on behalf of the whole Church in our country, to have the same enmity she did against the devil and the same love she did for the Lord Jesus, whom she cherished for nine months in her womb, and cherished just as much when she received him anew within her at the post-Ascension Masses celebrated by St. John and the other priests of the early Church. We ask her, too, to intercede for us so that we may be just as “out of our mind” as she and her Son were. God bless you!

The Gospel on which the homily was based was:
Gospel
Mk 3:20-35
Jesus came home with his disciples.
Again the crowd gathered,
making it impossible for them even to eat.
When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him,
for they said, “He is out of his mind.”
The scribes who had come from Jerusalem said,
“He is possessed by Beelzebul,”
and “By the prince of demons he drives out demons.”
Summoning them, he began to speak to them in parables,
“How can Satan drive out Satan?
If a kingdom is divided against itself,
that kingdom cannot stand.
And if a house is divided against itself,
that house will not be able to stand.
And if Satan has risen up against himself
and is divided, he cannot stand;
that is the end of him.
But no one can enter a strong man’s house to plunder his property
unless he first ties up the strong man.
Then he can plunder the house.
Amen, I say to you,
all sins and all blasphemies that people utter will be
forgiven them.
But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit
will never have forgiveness,
but is guilty of an everlasting sin.”
For they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”
His mother and his brothers arrived.
Standing outside they sent word to him and called him.
A crowd seated around him told him,
“Your mother and your brothers and your sisters
are outside asking for you.”
But he said to them in reply,
“Who are my mother and my brothers?”
And looking around at those seated in the circle he said,
“Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of God
is my brother and sister and mother.”
The post Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, June 8, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
11 min
June 06, 2024 Pilgrimage, Revival and St. John the Evangelist, St. John’s Church, Westminster, MD, June 5, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. John the Evangelist Parish
Westminster, Maryland
June 5, 2024

This brief talk was given during a rain-delay for the Eucharistic Procession to take place around the parish grounds of St. John’s Parish. It focuses briefly on the Eucharistic Pilgrimage of Christian Life and the Church, the place of the Eucharistic Pilgrimage within the Eucharistic Revival and How St. John the Evangelist helps us to learn to live centered on the Word made flesh.
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.4.24_St._Johns_Westminster_MD_1.mp3

The post Pilgrimage, Revival and St. John the Evangelist, St. John’s Church, Westminster, MD, June 5, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
24 min
June 03, 2024 Corpus Christi, St. Lawrence, and Eucharistic Integration, St. Laurence Church, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, June 2, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Laurence Church
Upper Darby, Pennsylvania
June 2, 2024

To listen to an audio recording of this bilingual homily, please click below.
The homily begins briefly in Spanish before speaking in English at length about the history of the foundation of the Corpus Christi feast and what it means for us today. Then it shifts in Spanish to the deacon St. Lawrence, patron of the parish, and what we can learn from him to integrate our Eucharistic faith in terms of being willing to die for the Mass, on a Eucharistic loving of the true treasure of the Church — Jesus and others for whom Jesus died — and finally about the joy that comes from the Eucharist that can influence even a brutal martyrdom, as we see in the account of St. Lawrence’s passion.
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.2.24_Corpus_Christi_and_St._Lawrence_1.mp3

The post Corpus Christi, St. Lawrence, and Eucharistic Integration, St. Laurence Church, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, June 2, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
27 min
June 02, 2024Daring to Do All We Can, Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral, Philadelphia, June 2, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, Philadelphia
Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord
June 2, 2024
Ex 24:3-8, Ps 116, Heb 9:11-15, Mk 14:12-16.22-26

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.2.24_Corpus_Christi_Homily_1.mp3
My name is Father Roger Landry and I have the privilege to be accompanying the Lord Jesus and the pilgrims on the Seton Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage all 65 days of our journey from New Haven to Indianapolis for the National Eucharistic Congress. The Pilgrimage and the Congress are both part of the three-year-plus National Eucharistic Revival that is taking place to renew the Church in our country by helping all of us grow in Eucharistic knowledge, faith, amazement, gratitude, love and life.
It’s a great joy for all of us to have the chance to celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord here in this beautiful and historic Cathedral, to proclaim the word of God as two of my fellow pilgrims did earlier and then to have one of us preach and I cannot thank Archbishop Perez enough for his generosity in inviting us to do so.
The essence of the Solemnity of Corpus Christi is given to us by Saint Thomas Aquinas in the liturgical sequence that immediately proceeded today’s Gospel. Lauda Sion Salvatorem — “Praise, O Zion, your Savior — lauda ducem et pastorem — “Praise your leader and shepherd” — in hymnis et canticis, “in hymns and songs.” We’re here fundamentally to praise and thank Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd. St. Thomas continues, Quantum potes, tantum aude — “dare to do all you can” — quia maior omni laude nec laudare sufficis — “because the mystery we celebrate is so much greater than all we can do and say.” We’re called to pull out all the stops, to push ourselves way beyond our comfort zones, because all our thanks will be far short of what the incredible self-gift of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist deserves. Quantum potes, tantum aude, literally “however much you can do, so dare to do,” ought to be the motto of Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the plan of the Eucharistic Revival, and the spirituality of every fully formed Catholic.
Having the courage to do all we can is why after Mass today we will be taking Jesus out into the streets in a Eucharistic procession to St. Patrick’s Church.
Having the boldness to do all possible was what defined your patrons, Saints Peter and Paul, who left everything to follow the Lord and continued to follow them to and through death into eternal life.
Having the audacity to do all possible is what inspired the saintly fourth bishop of Philadelphia in 1853, the year after his arrival, to start 40 hour Eucharistic devotions in every parish of the-then Diocese.
This bravery is what led Philadelphia native Saint Katherine Drexel, whose mortal remains are here in the Cathedral, to found the Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament to try to bring the Eucharistic Jesus and faith in him to blacks and Native Americans throughout the United States.
This dauntlessness is what led the Church in Philadelphia to build the greatest Catholic school system in the history of the world, to pass on not just the “three r’s” of reading, writing, and arithmetic to generations of young people but also the r’s of recognition of the Real Presence, of reverence, of the root and center, source and summit of our faith, Jesus Christ himself, on the altar.
This daring led the Church in Philadelphia likewise to step forward to host the 1976 international Eucharistic Congress so that, during the bicentennial of our nation’s founding documents signed here in Philadelphia, we might recognize our “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” will only find their fulfillment in our Eucharistic Lord, whose passion, death and resurrection set us free, who came to give us life to the full and who desires that his joy be in us and our joy complete.
This boldness is also what led the U.S. bishops to propose the Eucharistic Revival in the first place and to plan a Eucharistic Congress for more than 50,000 people.
It is also behind the choice of the young lay people behind me, together with priests and religious, united with similar groups starting from San Francisco, Brownsville, Texas, and northern Minnesota, to sign up for this Eucharistic adventure to accompany Jesus in the Holy Eucharist through cities and towns all across our country.
Corpus Christi is a day on which God gives us the grace to make resolutions to dare to do not just something, but to do something big and beautiful, out of love for God who loved us so much that he didn’t just take on our humanity and enter our world, who didn’t just die for us on Calvary and rise so that with him we might conquer death, but who willed to remain with us always as our food so that he could strengthen and sanctify us on the inside, help us fulfill the mission he’s given us in this world and come to experience eternal joy with him forever.
We see this boldness of the response to the gifts of God in today’s readings. In the first reading, in gratitude for the gift of salvation and the blessing of God’s helping the Israelites to learn how to worship him aright, the Lord’s chosen people “all answered with one voice, ‘We will do everything that the Lord has told us.’” In the Psalm, the inspired author asked, “How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for me?,” and he responded, “The cup of salvation I will raise and call on the name of the Lord.” Both of these have their fulfillment in the Gospel, when Jesus himself, on behalf of the human race, took up bread and the cup of salvation, thanked and praised God the father, totally changed them into himself — his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity — told us to take and eat, take and drink, and finally commanded us, “Do this in memory of me.” Today we respond, “We will do everything that the Lord has told us!” Today we make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for us and lift up the Lord’s Sacred Body and Precious Blood. Today we do this in memory of the Lord Jesus, conscious, as the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us, that Christ the High Priest, while present here for us in the tabernacle and soon on the altar, has pierced the sanctuary in heaven and that his blood has the power not just to “cleanse our consciences from dead works” but to make it possible for us, as we heard, to “worship the living God” well and to “receive the promised eternal inheritance.”
The greatest take away from the Solemnity of Corpus Christi is to help us recognize that by God’s gift, every day is meant to be a celebration of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus. When Jesus, exactly one year before the Last Supper, called us to labor for the food that endures to eternal life that he would give us and confirmed that he was that food, the true manna come down from heaven so that we might eat of him and never die, the people cried out, “Sir, give us this Bread always.” Likewise, when Jesus taught us to pray, he put on our lips the words, “Father, give us today our supersubstantial bread,” our epi-ousios Bread in Greek, which the Greek Fathers always knew referred not just to our material sustenance but to Jesus as the Living Bread come down from heaven. And in response to those two prayers, “give us this Bread always” and “give us today our supersubstantial Bread,” God the Father in fact does give us his Son every day as our heavenly manna to feed our souls, as the one to whom we can come to pray in person in the tabernacle and monstrance, as the one whom we can take out with faith and love into our streets so that he can encounter those for whom he died and call them anew, in a fresh way, to follow him to life, joy and a love that will know no end. In response to such a gift, the only worthy response is to dare to do all we can to praise, thank and love him in return.
I’d like to return to St. Thomas Aquinas who gave us today’s sequence. At the same time that we are living this three-year-plus Eucharistic Revival, we are providentially marking a Thomistic triennium. Last July 18, we celebrated the 700th anniversary of his canonization; three months ago on March 7, when Archbishop Perez ordained three new auxiliary bishops, we marked the 750th anniversary of the Angelic Doctor’s death and birth into eternal life. Next January, we will mark the 800th anniversary of his birth. Therefore it’s all the more fitting, as this triennium coincides with the Revival, to sit upon St. Thomas’ sturdy shoulders to see more clearly how to respond to the supreme gift of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. The best was is through pondering the five Eucharistic hymns that he wrote for the first Corpus Christi 760 years ago and that the Church has been singing every Corpus Christi since. In the Lauda Sion Salvatorem sequence, St. Thomas gave us words that inspire our Eucharistic procession today, that motivate my fellow pilgrims’ and my 65-day Eucharistic pilgrimage, that are meant to animate the pilgrim Church on earth’s journey through time to the eternal Jerusalem. We pray, Ecce panis angelorum, factus cibus viatorum, vere panis filiorum: “Behold, the Bread of Angels has become the food of pilgrims, the true bread of the beloved sons and daughters of God.” The Eucharistic Jesus has indeed become our food, our viaticum, with us each day of our earthly journey. What an incredible gift! And that expression “Bread of angels” calls to mind another, far more famous hymn of St. Thomas for this feast, prayed by the Church this morning at the Office of Readings. We sang, Panis angelicus fit panis hominum. “The food of Angels has become the food of men.” And then Thomas has us exclaim with him, O Res Mirabilis, manducat Dominum, pauper et servus humilis! “O what a mind blowing reality, a poor and humble servant eats the Lord!” That’s what we have the privilege to do today. That’s what we have the awesome invitation to do every day along our terrestrial pilgrimage. St. Thomas finishes that hymn by having us pray, Per tuas semitas duc nos quo tendimus ad lucem quam inhabitas! “Following your footsteps, lead us to where you have inclined us to go, to the light where you dwell!” That’s what whole earthly pilgrimage is about, following Christ the Light into eternal life. That’s what our Eucharistic procession today is about. That’s what the whole four-part National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is meant to help the Church remember. And that’s the goal and the path of the Christian life, as we dare to do all we can.
Blessed be Jesus in the most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar! Amen!

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1
Ex 24:3-8
When Moses came to the people
and related all the words and ordinances of the LORD,
they all answered with one voice,
“We will do everything that the LORD has told us.”
Moses then wrote down all the words of the LORD and,
rising early the next day,
he erected at the foot of the mountain an altar
and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.
Then, having sent certain young men of the Israelites
to offer holocausts and sacrifice young bulls
as peace offerings to the LORD,
Moses took half of the blood and put it in large bowls;
the other half he splashed on the altar.
Taking the book of the covenant, he read it aloud to the people,
who answered, “All that the LORD has said, we will heed and do.”
Then he took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, saying,
“This is the blood of the covenant
that the LORD has made with you
in accordance with all these words of his.”
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 116:12-13, 15-16, 17-18
R. (13) I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
How shall I make a return to the LORD
for all the good he has done for me?
The cup of salvation I will take up,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.
R. I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Precious in the eyes of the LORD
is the death of his faithful ones.
I am your servant, the son of your handmaid;
you have loosed my bonds.
R. I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
To you will I offer sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.
My vows to the LORD I will pay
in the presence of all his people.
R. I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Reading 2
Heb 9:11-15
Brothers and sisters:
When Christ came as high priest
of the good things that have come to be,
passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle
not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation,
he entered once for all into the sanctuary,
not with the blood of goats and calves
but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.
For if the blood of goats and bulls
and the sprinkling of a heifer’s ashes
can sanctify those who are defiled
so that their flesh is cleansed,
how much more will the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God,
cleanse our consciences from dead works
to worship the living God.For this reason he is mediator of a new covenant:
since a death has taken place for deliverance
from transgressions under the first covenant,
those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.
Sequence
Lauda Sion
Laud, O Zion, your salvation,
Laud with hymns of exultation,
Christ, your king and shepherd true:
Bring him all the praise you know,
He is more than you bestow.
Never can you reach his due.
Special theme for glad thanksgiving
Is the quick’ning and the living
Bread today before you set:
From his hands of old partaken,
As we know, by faith unshaken,
Where the Twelve at supper met.
Full and clear ring out your chanting,
Joy nor sweetest grace be wanting,
From your heart let praises burst:
For today the feast is holden,
When the institution olden
Of that supper was rehearsed.
Here the new law’s new oblation,
By the new king’s revelation,
Ends the form of ancient rite:
Now the new the old effaces,
Truth away the shadow chases,
Light dispels the gloom of night.
What he did at supper seated,
Christ ordained to be repeated,
His memorial ne’er to cease:
And his rule for guidance taking,
Bread and wine we hallow, making
Thus our sacrifice of peace.
This the truth each Christian learns,
Bread into his flesh he turns,
To his precious blood the wine:
Sight has fail’d, nor thought conceives,
But a dauntless faith believes,
Resting on a pow’r divine.
Here beneath these signs are hidden
Priceless things to sense forbidden;
Signs, not things are all we see:
Blood is poured and flesh is broken,
Yet in either wondrous token
Christ entire we know to be.
Whoso of this food partakes,
Does not rend the Lord nor breaks;
Christ is whole to all that taste:
Thousands are, as one, receivers,
One, as thousands of believers,
Eats of him who cannot waste.
Bad and good the feast are sharing,
Of what divers dooms preparing,
Endless death, or endless life.
Life to these, to those damnation,
See how like participation
Is with unlike issues rife.
When the sacrament is broken,
Doubt not, but believe ‘tis spoken,
That each sever’d outward token
doth the very whole contain.
Nought the precious gift divides,
Breaking but the sign betides
Jesus still the same abides,
still unbroken does remain.
The shorter form of the sequence begins here.
Lo! the angel’s food is given
To the pilgrim who has striven;
see the children’s bread from heaven,
which on dogs may not be spent.
Truth the ancient types fulfilling,
Isaac bound, a victim willing,
Paschal lamb, its lifeblood spilling,
manna to the fathers sent.
Very bread, good shepherd, tend us,
Jesu, of your love befriend us,
You refresh us, you defend us,
Your eternal goodness send us
In the land of life to see.
You who all things can and know,
Who on earth such food bestow,
Grant us with your saints, though lowest,
Where the heav’nly feast you show,
Fellow heirs and guests to be. Amen. Alleluia.
Alleluia
Jn 6:51
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven,
says the Lord;
whoever eats this bread will live forever.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Mk 14:12-16, 22-26
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
when they sacrificed the Passover lamb,
Jesus’ disciples said to him,
“Where do you want us to go
and prepare for you to eat the Passover?”
He sent two of his disciples and said to them,
“Go into the city and a man will meet you,
carrying a jar of water.
Follow him.
Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house,
‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room
where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”‘
Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready.
Make the preparations for us there.”
The disciples then went off, entered the city,
and found it just as he had told them;
and they prepared the Passover.
While they were eating,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, gave it to them, and said,
“Take it; this is my body.”
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them,
and they all drank from it.
He said to them,
“This is my blood of the covenant,
which will be shed for many.
Amen, I say to you,
I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine
until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
Then, after singing a hymn,
they went out to the Mount of Olives.
The post Daring to Do All We Can, Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral, Philadelphia, June 2, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
17 min
June 02, 2024 Remembering Jesus as St. John Neumann Did and Sought to Help Others Do, St. Peter the Apostle Church, Philadelphia, June 1, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Peter the Apostle Church
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
June 1, 2024

This homily was given during first Vespers for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord in the Redemptorist Church of St. Peter the Apostle, built over the Shrine of St. John Neumann, the fourth bishop of Philadelphia.
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The post Remembering Jesus as St. John Neumann Did and Sought to Help Others Do, St. Peter the Apostle Church, Philadelphia, June 1, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
24 min
June 01, 2024 The Visitation, The Holy Innocents and the Eucharist, Holy Innocents Parish, Philadelphia, May 31, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Holy Innocents Parish
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
May 31, 2024

This was a bilingual homily during a holy hour. The first seven minutes were in Spanish, preaching about the connection between the Mystery of the Visitation and the Holy Eucharist. The rest of the homily, in English, was about the connection between the Holy Innocents and the Holy Eucharist. To listen to the homily, please click below:
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18 min
June 01, 2024Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord (B), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, June 1, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Vigil
June 1, 2024

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below:
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The following text guided the homily:
This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us on Corpus Christi, the Feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord. In some ways, it’s the most important conversation a human being can have. Jesus takes bread and says to the apostles in the Upper Room, and to us each day, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he takes wine in a chalice and says, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.” These words would have been shocking to the apostles on Holy Thursday in the Upper Room. The wonder should never wear off. As we sing in the Panis Angelicus, “O res mirabilis! Manducat Dominum pauper et servus humilis.” “O what a mind-blowing reality: a poor and humble servant eats the Lord!” But that dialogue that leads to our drawing our life from Jesus in the Holy Eucharist just as he draws his life from God the Father leads to the possibility of a conversation that, incredibly, can continue every day in prayerful Eucharistic adoration when we have a chance to listen to God whisper to us interiorly, to bring to him our praise, thanks, sorrow, prayers for others and for ourselves, and learn how to abide in him and him in us. That existential conversation is then able to overflow into the whole of our life as we seek to love others as he has loved us first, giving us his body, blood and very life, and seek to be his instruments to bring others — our family members, friends, coworkers, fellow students and everyone we meet — into a similar dialogue, a similar communion of love and life.
In the Gospel this Sunday, before we get to the words of institution or consecration, Jesus speaks with his disciples about preparations for the Passover, and Jesus gives them detailed instructions about how to find the room where he intended to fulfill the ancient Passover rite as the definitive Lamb of God and how to get everything ready. It’s a good reminder to us of how we’re supposed to “prepare to eat the Passover,” to arrange our life to enter with Jesus into the new and eternal Covenant. A Catholic should be ever in a state of preparation to meet Jesus in the Eucharist, because the Eucharist is the supreme manifestation of the love of God for us. Jesus’ taking on our humanity and entering into the world through the fiat of the Blessed Virgin Mary wasn’t enough. His being born in poverty, hunted down as an infant by assassins, living three decades in relative obscurity weren’t enough. His whole public ministry — preaching, healing, exorcising, even raising three people from the dead — wasn’t enough. Not even his passion, death, and resurrection were enough. Jesus loved us so much that he willed to become our very food. He promised as he gave his valedictory address before ascending to the Father that he would remain with us always until the end of time and he does so by his real and substantial presence in the most holy Eucharist, outside of us in our tabernacles and monstrances for us to come to be with him, and inside of us in holy communion. That’s why Jesus in his apparitions to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, and the Church in her documents, refers to the Eucharist as the Sacramentum Caritatis, as the efficacious sign instituted by Christ himself to give us his love. He not only laid down his life for us on Calvary, but gives himself to us every day on the altar. This is what we celebrate on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord.
Since the first Corpus Christi feast 760 years ago, the feast has featured joyful processions of Jesus in the Eucharist out of our Churches into our streets so that everyone can unite themselves to, and properly adore, the Lord not just in our Catholic Churches but in daily life. Many parishes throughout the United States will be hosting solemn Eucharistic processions today. I’d urge you to attend one, lovingly taking Jesus out to the world he redeemed and that he wishes to sanctify precisely through his Eucharistic Presence. I am presently in Philadelphia, on the fifteenth day of the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (eastern) Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, a continuous 65-day Eucharistic procession from New Haven to Indianapolis in preparation for the National Eucharistic Congress beginning July 17. On Corpus Christi, led by Archbishop Nelson Perez of Philadelphia, we will have a huge Eucharistic Procession starting from SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral. The city of brotherly love will become a city of divine and Eucharistic love, which is at the root of any authentic fraternity and love of neighbor.
Eucharistic processions show two essential realities of our faith. The first is its dynamic nature. Jesus never told us to “stay where you are,” “don’t move,” but instead constantly was summoning his disciples to “get up, let’s go.” He summoned them and us to “come, follow me,” and then to “go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature” (Mk 14:42; 10:21; 16:15). The whole Christian life is defined by this movement. As St. John tells us, it’s to walk “just as [Jesus] walked” (1 Jn 2:6). Jesus says to us what he said to the paralytic in Capernaum, “Rise and walk” (Mt 9:5), and what he said to the three apostles in the garden, “Get up, let’s go.” We’re all called to say joyfully, with the words of Psalm 116, “I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.”
The Second Vatican Council said that this dynamism is the very nature of the Christian life. The Church is comprised, it wrote, of “pilgrims in a strange land” directed and guided by Jesus in our “pilgrimage toward eternal happiness.” The Liturgy reinforces this as we refer to Jesus’ Mystical Body as the “pilgrim Church on earth.” We see this essential aspect of our faith in how God asked Abraham, at 75, to leave his native place and go to a place where he would show him; how Moses and the Israelites left Egypt on a journey of 40 years to the promised land; how Elijah journeyed to the desert, Tobias journeyed with Raphael, Jonah journeyed to Nineveh, and the Jewish people journeyed back and forth to exile in Babylon. In giving the law to his chosen people through Moses, God instituted three pilgrim feasts in which Jews were expected to travel to the Temple three times a year, no matter how far away they lived: for Passover, for Pentecost and for the Feast of Tabernacles, all three of which have clear fulfillments in what would take place in Jerusalem in the Upper Room. Jesus himself, with Mary and Joseph, would make these pilgrimages. In his public ministry, Jesus made them with the apostles, teaching along the road and within the temple precincts and healing many as he passed through towns and villages.
It’s no surprise then that throughout Church history, the Church has lived out this pilgrim nature. The great commission is a reminder that we are meant always to be on the move, bringing the Gospel to every creature, crossing the road as Good Samaritans to care for those left wounded, following the good shepherd as he calls us by name and leads us out, being docile to the Holy Spirit who blows where he wills and came down on Pentecost as a strong driving wind capable of blowing the Church all over the then-known world. The Church has lived out its pilgrim nature making pilgrimages to the tombs of saints even in times of persecution, making journeys to the Holy Land, to Rome, to Santiago de Compostela, establishing the tradition of the Station Churches in Lent and more.
This pilgrim nature of the Church is not contradicted, but rather reinforced, by the whole notion of a parish. A parish seems like a stable place where we go to stay, a spiritual home from which some might never leave over many decades, but the word parish comes from the Greek word paroikia, which means temporary dwelling, a residence in a strange land, a hostel or a “station.” St. Peter uses paroikos or parishioner to describe a foreign pilgrim or sojourner (1 Pet 2:11) and paroikia for pilgrimage, exile or sojourn (1 Pet 1:17). The point is that the life of Christians is one of pilgrimage and exile, as we journey through the world without being of the world, because our true homeland is heaven. And the pilgrimage the Church makes throughout time is ultimately a Eucharistic procession, not with canopies, incense and hymns, but like Mary lived the mystery of the Visitation that we just marked on Friday. Jesus accompanies us on this pilgrimage in the Holy Eucharist, normally within us, but sometimes publicly, as many parishes will show on Corpus Christi and as the four-part National Eucharistic pilgrimage is manifesting over 6,500 miles on the road to Indianapolis. As we journey, we are boldly and unambiguously testifying that we believe what we are carrying in the monstrance is not a piece of bread at all, but, as Jesus said, the Living Bread come down from heaven, who has given us his Body and Blood for the life of the world (Jn 6:51). We pray that as a result of the Church’s Eucharistic witness many will seek to join Jesus on the Eucharistic pilgrimage of earthly life all the way to its conclusion in the eternal nuptial feast.
“Take and eat.” “Take and drink.” Those words of Jesus in the Gospel this Sunday are wondrously repeated every day on the altar of our parishes. By them, Jesus is inviting us to enter into a dialogue of life with him, wanting us to become more and more like himself whom we consume. He wants to make that conversation that echoes each day in our churches the most consequential one of our life so that we can leave Church like Mary left the Annunciation and the apostles left the Upper Room on Pentecost, bearing witness throughout the journey of our life that we do not walk alone, but that we walk with Jesus who walks with us. Blessed be Jesus in the most Blessed Sacrament of the altar! Amen!

The homily was based on the following Gospel:
Gospel
Mk 14:12-16, 22-26
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
when they sacrificed the Passover lamb,
Jesus’ disciples said to him,
“Where do you want us to go
and prepare for you to eat the Passover?”
He sent two of his disciples and said to them,
“Go into the city and a man will meet you,
carrying a jar of water.
Follow him.
Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house,
‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room
where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”‘
Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready.
Make the preparations for us there.”
The disciples then went off, entered the city,
and found it just as he had told them;
and they prepared the Passover.
While they were eating,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, gave it to them, and said,
“Take it; this is my body.”
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them,
and they all drank from it.
He said to them,
“This is my blood of the covenant,
which will be shed for many.
Amen, I say to you,
I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine
until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
Then, after singing a hymn,
they went out to the Mount of Olives.
The post Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord (B), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, June 1, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
10 min
May 31, 2024 Bringing People like St. Andrew to the Eucharistic Jesus, St. Andrew’s Church, Newtown, PA, May 30, 2024
Fr. Roger Landry
St. Andrew Church
Newtown, Pennsylvania
May 30, 2024

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31 min
May 29, 2024 The Eucharistic Path to Holiness, St. Augustine of Canterbury Parish, Kendall Park, NJ, May 28, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Augustine of Canterbury Parish
Kendall Park, New Jersey
May 28, 2024

To listen to an audio recording of tonight’s reflection, please click below:
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The post The Eucharistic Path to Holiness, St. Augustine of Canterbury Parish, Kendall Park, NJ, May 28, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
32 min

About Catholic Preaching

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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.