Catholic Preaching

Catholic Preaching

By Father Roger LandryReligion & SpiritualityChristianity
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Catholic Preaching episodes

  • Sixth Sunday of Easter (B), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, May 4, 2024

    Fr. Roger J. Landry

    Conversations with Consequences Podcast
    Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Vigil
    May 4, 2024

     

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

    https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.4.24_Landry_ConCon.mp3

     

    The following text guided the homily: 

    • This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy for me to be with you as we enter into what I think may be perhaps the most consequential conversation of all time, in the Risen Lord Jesus’ words to the apostles that constitute our Gospel passage this Sunday.
    • Jesus tells us, “Just as the Father loves me, so I love you.” We know that God the Father cannot possibly love God the Son more perfectly, or deeply, or better than he does. And Jesus is saying that he loves us just as much, just as profoundly, just as completely as God the Father loves him. This is the true foundation of the Christian life, to live in the love of God. God the Father so loved us that he gave his only Son so that we might not perish but have eternal life. God the Son loved us by freely and lovingly giving that life in order to save ours. God the Holy Spirit is that love between the Father and the Son and hence, since Jesus loves us like the Father loves him, the Holy Spirit is, by application, mysteriously the love between Jesus and us. Since God is love, he wishes to bring us into that communion of love, and that’s what Jesus’ and the Holy Spirit’s missions seek to achieve.
    • We all know how being loved can turn someone’s life right side up. I remember when I was a Catholic high school chaplain. Boys who used to come to high school with their shirts sloppy, their ties crooked, their hair a mess, would all of a sudden come in with shirts and pants pressed, the double-windsor knot perfect, with every hair shampooed and combed or gelled in place. When I would note the positive change that had taken place within them and ask, “What’s her name?,” they would think I was a soul-reading genius. But what was going on was crystal clear. They had fallen in love and that love gave meaning to everything they did, including how they prepared for school. If this is what can happen with a teenage crush, imagine what is supposed to happen when we realize that God loves us permanently and begin to live in that love? If the words “I love you” can make a dramatic difference in someone’s existence, what about Jesus’ saying, “I love you just as the Father loves me?”
    • In one of the most famous passages of his pontificate, Saint John Paul II stated, “Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it.” If this is true about the human love we find in the family, in friendships, and in romantic relationships especially marriage, how much more is it true about the love of God? There’s a reason for this: we’re made in the image and likeness of God who is love, who exists in a loving communion of persons. If we don’t live in love, if we don’t dwell in a loving communion of persons, then we’re lost before God, before others, and within ourselves. That’s why Jesus says to us, emphatically, that he loves us, and that he loves us as purely and perfectly as the Father loves him.
    • But the consequential conversation with Jesus doesn’t stop there. He tells us, “Remain in my love.” He knows that many of us run away from love in general and from his love in particular. Burning love from someone else can make us feel uncomfortable because we don’t think we’re worthy of it, or because we perhaps know that the only response to love is to love back and we fear we’re not capable of it. Love is meant to change us, to lift us up, and sometimes we don’t want to cooperate with that resurrection. Like St. Peter after the first miraculous catch of fish, we can cry out, “Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man.” That’s why Jesus gives us the imperative to abide in his love, to rest in it, to let it change us and become the defining characteristic of our life.
    • Third, he tells us how to remain in his love. “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love.” We can’t remain in his love if we break the commandments, not because he’ll pull his love away from us — his love is everlasting and he’ll never retract it — but because the commandments are all about living in the love of God and in the love of neighbor that flows from living in the love of God. We can’t love God if we’re worshipping other gods or giving into superstitions, if we’re abusing his holy name, if we’re blowing him off on the Lord’s Day. We can’t be loving him in those whom he loves if we’re dishonoring the parents he gave us, hating or killing those he created, taking advantage of them out of lust, stealing from the goods he gave them, lying to them, or getting envious over the human relationships or material goods with which he has blessed them. All the law and the prophets, Jesus tells us, hang on the two-fold commandment of loving God and neighbor and that’s why we can’t remain in his love if we’re violating the love that is contained in the commandments God has given us. The commandments train us how to love, and, therefore, how to remain in the love of God, since God is love. Jesus adds here that he’s not asking of us anything he himself hasn’t done. He says, “Just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.” Love, as Pope Benedict was accustomed to say, is idem velle, idem nolle, willing and rejecting the same things as the Beloved. If we love God, we’re going to love what he loves. Jesus, in loving the Father, loved the Father’s will. Likewise, if we truly love the Lord and remain in his love, we’ll love what he loves and seek to do what he out of love wills for us and others.
    • Fourth, after telling us to remain in his love by keeping his commandments, he summarizes and synthesizes what’s he’s commanding: “This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you.” And he shows us what real love is and leads to. It culminates in a total gift of ourselves for those we love. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus wants us to love one another to the point of giving of our lives for them, as he gave his life for us. While few of us will be required to die for others, when we’re willing to do so, then we’re much more willing to make the types of smaller sacrifices that are necessary for love: forgiving others, being patient with them, sacrificing some of our desires to help them fulfill their own, and so on. As Jesus says that the greatest love is to lay down one’s life for one’s friends, he immediately tells us, “You are my friends.” He calls us friends, he regards us as friends, because he has revealed to us everything he has heard from God the Father and has chosen and appointed us to go and bear fruit that will remain. And the way we reciprocate that philia, that love of friendship, is, he says, by doing what he commands, by agape and laying down our life for him, our friend, and for his friends.
    • We see in these words of Jesus the whole pattern of the Christian life, which begins with grace, received in faith, overflowing in love. Jesus says, “Just as the Father loves me, so I love you,” and wants us to say to others, “Just as Jesus loves me, so I love you,” treating others as friends with a willingness to sacrifice for them, to reveal to them what we have heard from God, to choose them whom God has chosen and to seek to bear fruit with them to eternal life.
    • The fruit of this Christian love life is also very clear. Jesus says in this Sunday’s consequential conversation: “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy might be complete.” The fruit of love is joy. We experience joy when we know how loved we are by God. We experience joy when we remain peacefully in that love without struggle. We experience joy when we share that love we have received with others and help them experience the joy of being loved. We experience that joy even in great sacrifice made out of love for others, like we see in the stories of martyrs across the centuries who were singing hymns on the road to execution as if they were proceeding to a wedding, because they rejoiced that they had the opportunity to give their lives for the one who had given his life for theirs, because they were able to give the supreme witness to the love of God that conquers even death.
    • This most consequential and life changing conversation Jesus had with the apostles on Holy Thursday is recapitulated every Mass, when Jesus shows us the depth of his life, not just laying down his life for us on the Cross, but giving his life for and to us in the Holy Eucharist. This is the means by which Jesus makes it possible for us to remain in his love, to live in a communion of love with him, and to be strengthened by him on the inside not only to love others like him but love others with him. That’s why Jesus described the Holy Eucharist to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque as the “Sacrament of Love,” an expression used by Pope Benedict in his exhortation on the Holy Eucharist. As the Church in the United States enters more deeply into the Eucharistic Revival with the 65-day, 7,000-mile National Eucharistic Pilgrimage beginning in two weeks, all heading to the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis July 17-21, it is a grace-filled time for us to recognize anew that, because we cannot live without love, God who created us in the beginning, God who is love, comes to us every day on the altar so that our life may not be incomprehensible and senseless but comprehensible and full of meaning, as we encounter Christ, love incarnate each day, and have the chance to participate intimately into the greatest expression of love in human life, from which every other form of true love flows. Every Mass, as Jesus says, “This is my Body given for you,” “This is the chalice of my Blood, … poured out for you,” and “Do this in memory of me,” he is reiterating the words, “Just as the Father has loved me with all he is, so I love you,” “remain in my love” and “love one another in the same Eucharistic way I have loved you.”

      •  

      The Gospel passage that guided the homily was: 

      Gospel
      Jn 15:9-17
      Jesus said to his disciples:
      “As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
      Remain in my love.
      If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
      just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
      and remain in his love.”I have told you this so that my joy may be in you
      and your joy might be complete.
      This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
      No one has greater love than this,
      to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
      You are my friends if you do what I command you.
      I no longer call you slaves,
      because a slave does not know what his master is doing.
      I have called you friends,
      because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.
      It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
      and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,
      so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
      This I command you: love one another.”

      The post Sixth Sunday of Easter (B), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, May 4, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

      10 min
    • Learning From Saints Philip and James, May 3, 2024

      Fr. Roger J. Landry

      St. Joseph’s Men’s Retreat
      Malvern Retreat House, Malvern, Pennsylvania
      Feast of SS. Philip and James
      May 3, 2024
      1 Cor 15:1-8, Ps 19, Jn 14:6-14

       

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

      https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.3.24_Mens_Retreat_Homily_1.mp3

       

      The following text guided the homily: 

      • Today we celebrate the feast of two apostles together, Saints Philip and James the Lesser, at the beginning of our retreat on Manly Love for the Eucharistic Jesus. These two Galileans had a manly love for Jesus in life. They were willing to leave everything behind to follow him for three years in his public ministry. They were with Jesus in the Upper Room when he startled them by taking bread and wine into his hands and totally transforming it into himself, saying, “Take and eat. This is my Body,” and “Take and drink. This chalice is the new covenant in my blood.” After their betrayal later on Holy Thursday, they valiantly came back and were together with the other eight apostles — minus Thomas — when Jesus appeared to them in the Upper Room on Easter Sunday. They were present in the same Upper Room 50 days later when the Holy Spirit came down upon them as a strong driving wind and as tongues of fire, so that the Holy Spirit could with strong gusts send them across the then known world to proclaim the Gospel with ardor. And they were those who not only were the living echoes of the words or works of Christ in the first decades of Christianity, but they were the ones who celebrated the Eucharist in Christ’s memory and ordained the first generations of priests and bishops to nourish the Church and bring it into holy communion. They were men whose love for Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, in his public ministry and his passion, death and resurrection translated into their love for the same Jesus, the Word made flesh, under the sacramental appearances of bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist. We have much to learn from them, but I’d like tonight to focus on three lessons we can learn from them about the Eucharistic reality of our life.
      • The first is about the way the Holy Eucharist is both an expression and cause of the Church’s communion that is at the source of the Church’s being and mission. Many have asked over the course of time why we celebrate the apostles Philip and James together. The primary reason is historical, because their relics were brought to the Church of the Holy Apostles (Dodici Apostoli) and buried there together in the ninth century. Since we have prayed for them together at Mass on the anniversary of their translation. This is similar to the reason why, for example, we celebrate on October 28 the feast of Saint Simon and Jude, because their relics are interred together in the Basilica of St. Peter under the tabernacle at the altar of St. Joseph in the southern transept. While it would certainly be fitting for us to celebrate Saints Philip and James individually, as we do the other eight apostles (including St. Matthias who took Judas’ place), there is a certain fittingness to fête them jointly, since when Jesus initially sent out the twelve to proclaim his kingdom by words and deeds, he sent them out in pairs. It’s quite possible that Philip and James were at one time explicit partners in the proclamation of the Gospel and hence their feast is an opportunity for us to examine something that perhaps we as Christians don’t ponder enough: who are our partners in the proclamation of the Gospel? If it’s important for police officers to have partners on whom they can depend, how much more important is it for those called to proclaim the Gospel, not only so that we can have each other’s back, but so that we can more easily put into practice the Gospel we proclaim to others. St. Gregory the Great once commented that the reason why Jesus sent out the apostles to proclaim the Gospel two-by-two even, though they could have theoretically covered twice as much ground if he had sent them out individually, was so that as they proclaimed the Gospel, they would be able to learn and show how to love one another, how to forgive one another, how to live in communion. Tonight, at the beginning of this retreat, we can examine how we can proclaim the Gospel better in tandem with others and who are those whom the Lord has put into our lives with whom we can preach. Certainly, Christian married couples are sent out two-by-two, which is one of the reasons why choosing a Christian spouse is so important for one to live a fully Christian life. But for those who are married, marriage is not the only way they are to proclaim the Gospel. Every faithful Catholic man needs to look around and see who can be a partner in the proclamation of the faith. What friendships can be nourished, what bonds we can form, who can we mentor or who can mentor us, so that we can more effectively proclaim the Gospel through collaboration? We see that St. Paul never proclaimed the Gospel alone. He preached it first with Barnabas, then with Silas, then with Timothy, and from prison did so with St. Luke. Despite his brilliance and individual capacity, he always united himself to others, including married couples like Priscilla and Aquila. Jesus in the Holy Eucharist seeks to unite us and strengthen us for that common mission, just like he strengthened Philip, James and the other apostles.
      • The second thing we learn tonight on this feast of SS. Philip and James is the priority that should be given to the proclamation of the faith. In the first reading, St. Paul, the great collaborator, tells the Corinthians, “I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received,” and then he describes for us Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection and appearances. To pass on the Gospel was “of first importance,” in other words, the most important thing he could do and the Corinthians in turn could do. Why? He told them right before, because, he said, it is the Gospel that “you indeed received and in which you also stand [and through which] you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you.” When we receive the Gospel with faith and hold fast to it, our lives our made secure — we stand in it firmly — and we are being saved through it, always in the present tense. The Gospel places our life on the most solid foundation of all and leads to salvation. How could we not want to share that gift with others? The celebration of the Mass is the place par excellence in which we pass on to others as of the first importance the awesome gift we receive, not just of the words of God, but God himself. And every time we come to Mass, not just on Sundays but, when we can, during the week, we are testifying to the fact that Jesus is of “first importance” not just in our life but in anyone’s.
      • But the Gospel we share is not fundamentally a group of teachings or facts. That’s the third point we learn from tonight’s readings. The kerygma — what St. Paul preached about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection — is not just a bunch of facts and teachings that we communicate. It is ultimately a relationship, an intimate covenantal bond with Jesus through the Holy Spirit and in him with the Father. Jesus reveals this in his dialogue with the apostles during the Last Supper, which we have as tonight’s Gospel. Jesus says, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life,” words that would have startled Jews, who always prayed in the Psalms for God to show them his paths so that they might know and walk in his truth, who always begged him to show them the path of life. Jesus was saying, “I am that Path, I am that Truth, I am that Life.” To pass on the Gospel is to help one enter into the life-changing relationship with Jesus, so that they will know where they are supposed to head, what they are supposed to believe, and how they are to live and experience life to the full. Jesus says that it is through the way, truth and life he is and reveals that one comes to see and know the Father. When St. Philip asks Jesus to show them the Father, Jesus reveals that anyone who has seen him — the perfect image of the invisible God — has seen the Father because he abides in the Father and the Father in him, because the Father speaks through him and the Father dwells in him doing his works. What’s startling is that Jesus tells us that if we abide in him, if we follow him who is the Way, believe in Him who is the Truth, and enter into Him who is the Life, God the Father through Jesus will be able to work in us and those works will be even greater than the works Jesus himself has done in life: “Amen, amen, I say to you,” he tells us, “whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” It was one thing for the eternal Son of God to do the works of the Father in the ancient Holy Land. It will be something even greater for his Mystical Body to do works throughout the world. Jesus himself raised the dead, cured lepers, made the blind see, exorcised demons, fed multitudes with paltry starting material and rose from the dead. What Philip and James were able to do, and what we will be able to do in Jesus’ name, is bring him from heaven to earth under the appearance of bread and wine, forgive sins in God’s name, and love others far more extensively than he has loved us. And in so doing, we will be able to bring many others to receive the life, know the truth and follow the path who is Jesus and to which he calls us all — bring many others to communion with God and with us. This is the work we do in communion with Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
      • That brings us to the fourth and last point. Because the proclamation of the Gospel is fundamentally about announcing that Jesus Christ, Lord, Savior, King, Shepherd, Way, Truth, Resurrection and Life is still very much with us, always, just as he promised, until the end of time in the Holy Eucharist, the most important thing we can do is to help people enter into a personal relationship with Jesus, the Good News incarnate. St. Philip was one who was always bringing others to Jesus. Right after Jesus called him, he brought his friend Nathanael, aka Bartholomew, to Jesus. Little did Philip know that Nathanael would likewise become a partner in the Gospel. It was also Philip who helped find the boy with five loaves and two fish which was the raw material for Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fish. He was obviously someone who knew how to work the crowd, to make friends, to get them to be willing to come with him or to make a sacrifice of a meal or more. It was also Philip whom the Greeks asked to introduce them to Jesus before the Passion, the very Greeks whom, when Jesus found out from Philip and Andrew they were looking for him, exclaimed that it was now the hour for the Son of Man to be glorified through his suffering, death and resurrection. Philip was, in short, a bridge for others to come to Jesus. St. James the Lesser likewise prioritized facilitating people coming to Jesus. Many scholars believer he was the first leader of the Church in Jerusalem, the James we have encountered the last two days at daily Mass in Acts 15 at the Council of Jerusalem. When SS. Paul and Barnabas brought them the case of the Gentiles in Antioch and whether they needed to accept all of the Jewish law and practices — including circumcision — before becoming Christians, St. James, together with St. Peter and the other members of the Church, said that they did not, making much smoother their entry into the Church and their growth in the fulfillment of the new law. James knew that Jesus was the way, not the isolated works of the Jewish midrash of the Mosaic law, something that Jesus himself spoke about in his dialogues with the Scribes and Pharisees. Philip and James both showed us that of first importance was bringing people to Jesus and making possible for people to follow him. They had no idea what would happen after that first encounter, but Philip’s work led to apostles, to miracles, and to the culmination of Christ’s work and James’ labors led to its flourishing. For us, we’re called to be as amiable as Philip, as wise and respected as James, so that we might be able like them to bring people to the Lord, conscious that from them, the Lord can and wants to do amazing things. The Eucharistic Jesus — in prayerful encounter in adoration, by entering into his hour with our own five loaves and two fish at the altar — awaits the men, women, kids and seniors, he hopes that we will introduce to him or help enter into a much deeper bond.
      • Even though SS. Philip and James were already united in the college of the twelve apostles, they entered into a far more profound communion with each other and with Jesus when the Lord made them one body through the reception of Holy Communion during the Last Supper. And from that same Upper Room 53 days later, filled with the Holy Spirit, they were sent out to bring others into that same communion. Today, at the beginning of our retreat, the Lord invites us into a much greater familiarity with him, so that, like he did with SS. Philip and James, he might send us out by two, or by a dozen, or by 35 or 72 or more, to announce to the whole world, with tongues of fire, as of the first importance the Gospel incarnate in which we now stand and by which we are being saved, Jesus himself, truly present among us, ready to feed us, and to bring us into communion with each other. May we be as faithful to our joint mission as Philip and James were to theirs, both on earth and now in heaven!

        • The readings for today’s Mass were: 

        Reading 1
        1 COR 15:1-8
        I am reminding you, brothers and sisters,
        of the Gospel I preached to you,
        which you indeed received and in which you also stand.
        Through it you are also being saved,
        if you hold fast to the word I preached to you,
        unless you believed in vain.
        For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received:
        that Christ died for our sins
        in accordance with the Scriptures;
        that he was buried;
        that he was raised on the third day
        in accordance with the Scriptures;
        that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.
        After that, he appeared to more
        than five hundred brothers and sisters at once,
        most of whom are still living,
        though some have fallen asleep.
        After that he appeared to James,
        then to all the Apostles.
        Last of all, as to one born abnormally,
        he appeared to me.
        Responsorial Psalm
        PS 19:2-3, 4-5
        R. (5) Their message goes out through all the earth.
        or:
        R. Alleluia.
        The heavens declare the glory of God;
        and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
        Day pours out the word to day;
        and night to night imparts knowledge.
        R. Their message goes out through all the earth.
        or:
        R. Alleluia.
        Not a word nor a discourse
        whose voice is not heard;
        Through all the earth their voice resounds,
        and to the ends of the world, their message.
        R. Their message goes out through all the earth.
        or:
        R. Alleluia.
        Gospel
        JN 14:6-14
        Jesus said to Thomas, “I am the way and the truth and the life.
        No one comes to the Father except through me.
        If you know me, then you will also know my Father.
        From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
        Philip said to him,
        “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
        Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time
        and you still do not know me, Philip?
        Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
        How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
        Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
        The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own.
        The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.
        Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me,
        or else, believe because of the works themselves.
        Amen, amen, I say to you,
        whoever believes in me will do the works that I do,
        and will do greater ones than these,
        because I am going to the Father.
        And whatever you ask in my name, I will do,
        so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
        If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”

        The post Learning From Saints Philip and James, May 3, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

        21 min
      • The Importance of Apostolic Duos, Feast of SS. Philip and James, May 3, 2024

        Fr. Roger J. Landry

        Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
        Feast of SS. Philip and James, Apostles
        May 3, 2024
        1 Cor 15:1-8, Ps 19, Jn 14:6-14

         

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

        https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.3.24_CCM_Homily_1.mp3

         

        The following points were pondered in the homily: 

        • Today we celebrate the feast of two apostles together, Saints Philip and James the Lesser. The reason why we celebrate them together is historical, because their relics were brought to the Church of the Holy Apostles (Dodici Apostoli) and buried there together in the ninth century, similar to the reason why we celebrate on October 28 the feast of Saint Simon and Jude, because their relics are interred together in the Basilica of St. Peter. While it would certainly be fitting for us to celebrate them individually, as we do the other eight apostles (including St. Matthias who took Judas’ place), there is a certain fittingness to fête them jointly, since when Jesus initially sent out the twelve to proclaim his kingdom by words and deeds, he sent them out in pairs. It’s quite possible that Philip and James were at one time explicit partners in the proclamation of the Gospel and hence their feast is an opportunity for us to examine something that perhaps we don’t ponder enough: who are our partners in the proclamation of the Gospel? If it’s important for police officers to have partners on whom they can depend, how much more important is it for those called to proclaim the Gospel, not only so that we can have each other’s back, but so that we can more easily put into practice the Gospel we proclaim to others. St. Gregory the Great once commented that the reason why Jesus sent out the apostles to proclaim the Gospel two-by-two even though they could have theoretically covered twice as much ground if he had sent them out individually was so that as they proclaimed the Gospel, they would be able to learn and show how to love one another, how to forgive one another, how to live in communion. So today as we ponder what we need to learn in the Word of God, we can do so in the context of examining how we can proclaim the Gospel better in tandem with others and who are those whom the Lord has put into our lives with whom we can preach. Certainly Christian married couples are sent out two-by-two. But it behooves all of us to look around to see what friendships we can nourish, what bonds we can form, so that we can live the Gospel better and proclaim it more effectively.
        • In today’s first reading, St. Paul tells the Corinthians and us about the importance of proclaiming the Gospel. “I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received,” and then he describes for us Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection and appearances. To pass on the Gospel was “of first importance,” in other words, the most important thing he could do and they in turn could do. Why? He told them right before, because it is the Gospel that “you indeed received and in which you also stand [and through which] you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.” When we receive the Gospel with faith and hold fast to it, our lives our made secure — we stand in it firmly — and we are being saved through it, always in the present tense. The Gospel places our life on the most solid foundation of all and leads to salvation. How could we not want to share that gift with others? As we collaborate with others in the desire to share the Gospel, we strengthen others on that foundation and ever-present work of redemption.
        • But the Gospel is not fundamentally a group of teachings or facts. The kergyma — what St. Paul preached about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection — is not just a bunch of words that we say. It is a relationship, an intimate covenantal bond with Jesus through the Holy Spirit and in him with the Father. Jesus reveals this in his dialogue with the apostles during the Last Supper, which we have as today’s Gospel. Jesus says, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life,” words that would have startled Jews, who always prayed in the Psalms for God to show them his paths so that they might know and walk in his truth, who always begged him to show them the path of life. Jesus was saying, “I am that Path, I am that Truth, I am that Life.” To pass on the Gospel is to help one enter into the life-changing relationship with Jesus, so that they will know where they are supposed to head, what they are supposed to believe, and how they are to live and experience life to the full. Jesus says that it is through the way, truth and life he both reveals and is that one comes to see and know the Father. When St. Philip asks Jesus to show them the Father, Jesus reveals that anyone who has seen him — the perfect image of the invisible God — has seen the Father because he abides in the Father and the Father in him, because the Father speaks through him and the Father dwells in him doing his works. What’s startling is that Jesus tells us that if we abide in him, if we follow him who is the Way, believe in Him who is the Truth, and enter into Him who is the Life, the Father through Jesus will be able to work in us and those works will be even greater than the works Jesus himself has done in life: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” It was one thing for the eternal Son of God to do the works of the Father in the ancient Holy Land. It will be something even greater for his Mystical Body to do works throughout the world. Jesus himself raised the dead, cured lepers, made the blind see, exorcised demons, fed multitudes with paltry starting material and rose from the dead. What we will be able to do in his name is bring him from heaven to earth under the appearance of bread and wine, forgive sins in God’s name, and love others far more quantitatively extensively than he has loved us. And in so doing, bring many others to receive the life, the truth and the path who is Jesus and to which he calls us all — bring many others to communion with God and with us.
        • St. Philip was one who was always bringing others to enter into communion with Jesus and through, with and in Jesus with the burgeoning Church. Right after Jesus called him, he brought his friend Nathanael to Jesus. Little did he know that Nathanael would likewise become a partner in the Gospel. It was Philip who helped find the boy with five loaves and two fish which was the raw material for Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fish. It was Philip whom the Greeks asked to introduce them to Jesus before the Passion. He was a bridge for others to come to Jesus and that is what every Christian ought to be. This is of “first importance” in the Christian life. St. James the Lesser likewise had this function. Many scholars believer he was the first leader of the Church in Jerusalem, the James we encounter in Acts 15 in the Council of Jerusalem. When SS. Paul and Barnabas brought them the case of the Gentiles in Antioch and whether they needed to accept all of the Jewish law and practices — including circumcision — before becoming Christians, St. James, together with St. Peter and the other members of the Church, said that they did not, facilitating their entry into the Church. He knew that Jesus was the way, not the isolated works of the Jewish midrash of the Mosaic law, which Jesus himself spoke again in his dialogues with the Scribes and Pharisees. Of first importance was the kergyma. Of first importance was Jesus. So it is always.
        • SS. Philip and James entered into communion with each other even more deeply when the Lord made them one body during the Last Supper. And he sent them out to bring others into that same communion. Today the Lord invites us into that same mutual abiding with him and with others so that just as he said to SS. Philip and James he made say to us at the end of today’s Mass: “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord!” May we be as faithful to our joint mission as they were to theirs!

          •  

          The readings for today’s Mass were: 

          Reading 1
          1 COR 15:1-8
          I am reminding you, brothers and sisters,
          of the Gospel I preached to you,
          which you indeed received and in which you also stand.
          Through it you are also being saved,
          if you hold fast to the word I preached to you,
          unless you believed in vain.
          For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received:
          that Christ died for our sins
          in accordance with the Scriptures;
          that he was buried;
          that he was raised on the third day
          in accordance with the Scriptures;
          that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.
          After that, he appeared to more
          than five hundred brothers and sisters at once,
          most of whom are still living,
          though some have fallen asleep.
          After that he appeared to James,
          then to all the Apostles.
          Last of all, as to one born abnormally,
          he appeared to me.
          Responsorial Psalm
          PS 19:2-3, 4-5
          R. (5) Their message goes out through all the earth.
          or:
          R. Alleluia.
          The heavens declare the glory of God;
          and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
          Day pours out the word to day;
          and night to night imparts knowledge.
          R. Their message goes out through all the earth.
          or:
          R. Alleluia.
          Not a word nor a discourse
          whose voice is not heard;
          Through all the earth their voice resounds,
          and to the ends of the world, their message.
          R. Their message goes out through all the earth.
          or:
          R. Alleluia.
          Gospel
          JN 14:6-14
          Jesus said to Thomas, “I am the way and the truth and the life.
          No one comes to the Father except through me.
          If you know me, then you will also know my Father.
          From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
          Philip said to him,
          “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
          Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time
          and you still do not know me, Philip?
          Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
          How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
          Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
          The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own.
          The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.
          Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me,
          or else, believe because of the works themselves.
          Amen, amen, I say to you,
          whoever believes in me will do the works that I do,
          and will do greater ones than these,
          because I am going to the Father.
          And whatever you ask in my name, I will do,
          so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
          If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”

          The post The Importance of Apostolic Duos, Feast of SS. Philip and James, May 3, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

          19 min
        • Hearing Anew the Most Important Words of All Time, Fifth Thursday of Easter, May 2, 2024

          Fr. Roger J. Landry
          Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, New York, NY
          Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter

          Memorial of St. Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
          May 2, 2024
          Act 15: 7-21, Ps 96, Jn 15:9-11

           

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

          https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.2.24_Homily_1.mp3

           

          The following points were attempted in the homily: 

          • Today in the Gospel Jesus says what I believe are the most important words in the history of the world. We will hear them again on Sunday. These words are important whenever anyone says them, but the fact that God himself said them in the way that he said them, and then put them into his own body language, makes them the most life-changing phrase ever: “I love you,” he tells us. We need to stop and ponder the reality of those words! “I love you.” But then Jesus puts them into a context that ought to astound us: “Just as the Father loves me, I love you.” The Father loves him perfectly, profoundly and intimately — and Jesus tells us that he loves us in that same way. And he doesn’t merely love us “all” in that way, but he loves each of us in that way, as St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians, “He loved me and gave his life for me” (Gal 2:20).
          • Grasping this reality is essential not only for the Christian life but for human life. “Man cannot live without love,” St. John Paul II wrote in his first encyclical Redemptor Hominis. “He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it” (RH 10). This is true for love in general. We need the love of family, the love of friends, the spousal love of a husband or wife (either human or mystical), the total self-giving love of someone who values us that much. Without it, we’re lost. Many people who don’t experience this love spend their lives looking for it in places they won’t find it. If they haven’t experienced the love of a mom or dad, they often get themselves into trouble seeking that love in relationships that will never truly substitute. If they’ve suffered violence in relationships that should have been loving, often they’ll get involved in lifestyles that will try to reconstruct the love that should have been present in the first place. But it is also true in terms of divine love. There are many people — including many Catholics — who have never really experienced the love of the Lord. Their notion of God is perhaps an angry God, or a distant, negligent God, or a God who is a stern taskmaster making sure they fulfill all their duties lest they be punished, or even an indulgent God who doesn’t care about them enough to concern himself with their self-destructive choices. They haven’t experienced a loving God. Many people are filled with a type of self-pity or self-hatred because they have never experienced God’s love and often don’t believe they are lovable by God or anyone else, that they can never please him, that they’re constantly letting him, themselves and everyone else down. Today Jesus says to them, and to all of us, “I love you … just as my Father loves me!” And he shows them how much he loves them by telling them that he will lay down his life for them out of agapic philia, which we would have had in tomorrow’s continuation of today’s Gospel if it were not the feast of the apostles Philip and James: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” He will love them to the extreme of his self-giving.
          • After Jesus says the most important words in history he then gives us the most important command of the Christian life. “Remain in my love.” As much as he loves us, he knows that many of us run away from that love. That type of burning love can make us uncomfortable because we don’t think we’re worthy of it, because we don’t want to let God down. We know that that love is meant to change us, to lift us up, and many times we don’t want to cooperate with that resurrection. One of the things that we see in life is that when people think they’re less than they are, often they begin to sink to their self-identity so that they can “prove” to others that they’re as “bad” as they believe they are. We can also do that spiritually. We can flee from God’s love because it’s too much for us. That’s why Jesus gives us the imperative to abide in his love, to rest in it, to let it change us and become the defining characteristic of our life.
          • Third, he tells us how to remain in that love. “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love.” We can’t remain in his love if we break the commandments, not because he’ll pull his love away from us — his love is everlasting and he’ll never pull away — but because the commandments are all about living in the love of God and the love of neighbor that flows from living in the love of God. We can’t love God if we’re worshipping other gods or giving into superstitions, if we’re abusing his holy name, if we’re blowing him off on the Lord’s day. We can’t be loving him in those whom he loves if we’re dishonoring the parents he gave us, hating or killing those he created, taking advantage of them out of lust, stealing from the goods he gave them, lying to them, or getting envious over the blessings of human love he has given them or of material blessings. All the law and the prophets, Jesus tells us, hang on the two-fold commandment of loving God and neighbor and that’s why we can’t remain in his love if we’re violating the love that is contained in the commandments God has given. In this condition to remaining in his love, however, Jesus is leading by example. He never says merely “Do what I say!” but always, “Follow me!,” and he does so in this circumstance as well. After telling us that to remain in his love we need to keep his commandments, he adds, “just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.” Love, as Pope Benedict was accustomed to say, is idem velle, idem nolle, willing and rejecting the same things as the Beloved. If we love God we’re going to love what he loves. Jesus, in loving the Father, loved the Father’s will. Likewise, if we truly love the Lord and remain in his love, we’ll love what we loves and seek to do what he out of love wills for us and others.
          • And then Jesus tells us what remaining in his love leads to: “I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.” The fruit of love is joy. We see this all the time when people fall in love. Being loved and loving others in return changes people for the better. They recognize how good life is. You can’t wipe the smile from their faces. I used to enjoy seeing this dramatic transformation in high school students when I was a chaplain at Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River. Love changes us. Love fills us with joy. I rejoice to see it in young couples preparing for marriage, as well as in older couples who have rekindled their first love.
          • But that type of love we see in human relationships is supposed to be even more evident in our life of faith. Jesus has told us of his undying love for us and of the Father’s love for him so that we might have his joy in us and so that our joy may be perfected. The first thing to note here is that Jesus was full of joy! Many times our image of Jesus doesn’t have him smiling. We can project onto him our own seriousness. But Jesus was the most joyful human being who ever lived! He was joyful because he lived in the Father’s love. His joy in his public ministry attracted people to leave their livelihoods and follow him, because they wanted that joy. His joy was doubtless even more radiant after his resurrection, when he was able to show others the reason for a joy that the world couldn’t give or rob. And Jesus wants us to have that joy! If we experience his love, we will have that joy! The reality, however, is that many Christians don’t live with this joy. Pope Francis has said that joy is meant to be the “sign of a Christian” and therefore, “a Christian without joy is either not a Christian or is sick.… A healthy Christian is a joyful Christian.” He’s calling us all to live our faith with the joy that flows from the Gospel, the joy that flows from knowing we’re loved by God to the point of suffering crucifixion, the joy that’s been raised from the dead and can’t therefore be extinguished. This is a joy that isn’t lost but in fact is intensified in suffering. We see that in the stories of the martyrs who were singing hymns on the road to execution as if they were proceeding to a wedding. And once Christians start living with that type of joy, others will be busting down the doors to experience that same joy. That’s the way we’re called to spread the Gospel, so that they might follow the trail of our joy to the Source of that joy in the love Jesus has for us and has for them.
          • We see an application of this love in today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, which concerns the deliberations of the Council of Jerusalem about what to do with Gentile Christians. The point of their conversation was so that the Gentile Christians would enter into and experience the love of God, rather than feel perpetually under the weight of the law, of the 613 commandments of the Old Testament, many of which were preparatory so that the Jews could receive the love of God and pass it on, but many of which also had become idols rather than means. St. Peter stood up and said two things that are really important for us to grasp. The first is that we are “saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way as they,” reminding them of what God had done for the family of Cornelius the centurion when St. Peter had baptized the whole family. We are saved by the unmerited love of God, who loved us so much that he sent his own Son so that we might not perish but have eternal life. We’re not saved by the “yoke” of all the precepts of the law —  in other words by our own actions, “that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear.” The second truth is that to put that yoke or burden on the shoulders of the disciples would be tantamount to “putting God to the test,” to not living in God’s love, since he has obviously accepted them through what Peter testified about the way the Gentiles were accepted and what Paul and Barnabas were themselves saying. Peter’s words, inspired by the Holy Spirit, held the day. St. James, who had a tremendous reputation among the Judaizing Christians and among the strictest Jews in general for his fasting, prayer and rigorous observance of the Mosaic law fulfilled in Jesus, spoke about how the prophets had foretold that the Lord would bring about that “the rest of humanity may seek out the Lord, even all the Gentiles on whom my name is invoked.” He therefore said that they should accept the Gentiles as God has, but put three conditions on them that are consistent with living in the love of the Lord. They counteract three things that can prevent our remaining in God’s love.
            • The first was pride. That’s why he said they should not eat the “meat of strangled animals and blood.” The entire Old Testament was meant essentially to teach the Jews that they were not God. One of the ways God helped them to realize this was by the way he had them prepare food. Blood was the sign of life — if there’s blood flowing in an animal, the animal is alive. To consume an animal with the blood still in it was to play, to some degree, the part of God. So God commanded in the Old Covenant that the animal should be killed in such a way that all the blood would be drained out of it before the Jews would try to prepare the animal for a meal. That way they were not tempted to play the Lord of life and death over animals, but only to eat animals in which there was clearly no life — no blood — left. God would surpass this dietary restriction and pronounce all foods clean in a dream St. Peter would have, but St. James recognized that Jewish and Gentile Christians would never be able to have the communion of shared meals if the Gentiles were eating the meat from strangled animals, because it would be jarring to them as if the Gentiles were playing God.
            • The second was to the failure to love one’s neighbor. This is in the background of the command to “avoid pollution from idols.” That wasn’t just idolatry, but from eating the meat sacrificed to idols. In the pagan temples, when a cow for example was sacrificed, a little of the meat would be burned, some would be given to the pagan priests, but most would be returned to the family for a feast in which they would offer themselves to the pagan gods. Jews had always been particularly sensitive to this type of participation in idolatrous sacrifices and Jews and Gentiles would never be able to eat together if the Gentiles were insensitively communing with pagan sacrifices in this way.
            • Finally, it was preventing their own love from being corrupted. That’s why he commanded that they should avoid “porneia,” meaning all sexual sin. They would not be remaining in the love of the Lord if they were lusting after others.
            • When Judas and Silas, Paul and Barnabas, announced the decision to the Gentile Christians in Antioch (which ordinarily we would have seen tomorrow if we didn’t have the proper feasts of SS. Philip and James), there was great rejoicing, the joy that flows from living in the salvation that Christ has given by his grace, by living in his love that was very much alive in the Christian community.
            • Today the Church celebrates the feast of St. Athanasius, the great and intrepid saintly fourth-century doctor of the Church who as a young deacon was an enormously important figure in the Council of Nicaea and perhaps the greatest figure in defending its core teaching about Jesus Christ, who as the incarnate God is incarnate Love because God is love. In a 2007 catechesis, Pope Benedict summarized St. Anthasius’ life by saying, “The fundamental idea of Athanasius’ [life] was precisely that God is accessible. … It is through our communion with Christ that we can truly be united to God. He has really become ‘God-with-us.’” In Christ God is accessible and his love is made tangible. We might take that thought for granted today, but during Athanasius’ life it was not universally acknowledged. As a young boy born during the time of ferocious anti-Christian persecutions, he learned the Gospel of the Lord from heroic, confessor priests. He went as a young deacon to assist the Patriarch of Alexandria (Egypt) at the Council of Nicaea in 325. This was the second Ecumenical Council after the Council of Jerusalem, and was called 12 years after the legalization of Christianity, to deal with the teachings of an Egyptian priest Arius who was claiming that Jesus, as Pope Benedict summarized the position, “was not a true God but a created God, a creature ‘halfway’ between God and man who hence remained for ever inaccessible to us.” God had not really become man in the Incarnation. The brilliant deacon Athanasius helped lead the charge against Arius’ teaching, which he persuaded the Council to condemn, and it was largely out of his work that we have the Nicene Creed we proclaim every Sunday. But even though the Arians lost, their false theological ideas were not extinguished. Over the course of time, Arians, those who didn’t believe Jesus was 100 percent God and 100 percent man, gained the upper hand in civil and Church politics. Various bishops and priests were Arians as were some emperors. For that reason, St. Athanasius was persecuted, multiply exiled, and had to suffer a great deal. Five different times he was banished from his see by command of the emperor. 17 of his 45 years as Patriarch of Alexandria he spent in exile. But the incarnation he taught he also lived and he knew that Jesus was with him in his risen and transfigured Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. Athanasius taught that the Word of God “was made man so that we might be made God,” and he sought through all of his priestly work to bring about that sanctification. And that focus on the presence of the love of God in the incarnate God of love filled him with love and with joy in the midst of all he endured for the Gospel.
            • Jesus told us these words, “I love you … just as the Father loves me,” on Holy Thursday. And it’s at Mass, at our daily participation in what he began in the Upper Room, that Jesus not only says those words but puts them into body language. As he says in the continuation of this Gospel, no one has greater love than to lay down his life for his friends, and Jesus gives his life for us — his body, blood, soul and divinity — here in the Eucharist, which is our participation in time in his one eternal sacrifice in the Upper Room and on the Cross on Calvary to save us. This is the way he loves us each day. By receiving this love and remaining in it, we are filled with God, strengthened to keep his commandments, and ought to be filled with joy. The most joyful man who ever lived comes to live within us. That joy should fill us with contagious excitement to participate in Mass and move us to bring that joy out to a world that in many places of which that joy is absent. This is the joy of the Gospel we receive and are called to radiate. May we today bring this deep Christian joy that flows from our remaining in Jesus’ life-giving love to all we’ll meet today!

              •  

              The readings for today’s Mass were: 

              Reading 1
              ACTS 15:7-21
              After much debate had taken place,
              Peter got up and said to the Apostles and the presbyters,
              “My brothers, you are well aware that from early days
              God made his choice among you that through my mouth
              the Gentiles would hear the word of the Gospel and believe.
              And God, who knows the heart,
              bore witness by granting them the Holy Spirit
              just as he did us.
              He made no distinction between us and them,
              for by faith he purified their hearts.
              Why, then, are you now putting God to the test
              by placing on the shoulders of the disciples
              a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?
              On the contrary, we believe that we are saved
              through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they.”
              The whole assembly fell silent,
              and they listened
              while Paul and Barnabas described the signs and wonders
              God had worked among the Gentiles through them.
              After they had fallen silent, James responded,
              “My brothers, listen to me.
              Symeon has described how God first concerned himself
              with acquiring from among the Gentiles a people for his name.
              The words of the prophets agree with this, as is written:
              After this I shall return
              and rebuild the fallen hut of David;
              from its ruins I shall rebuild it
              and raise it up again,
              so that the rest of humanity may seek out the Lord,
              even all the Gentiles on whom my name is invoked.
              Thus says the Lord who accomplishes these things,
              known from of old.
              It is my judgment, therefore,
              that we ought to stop troubling the Gentiles who turn to God,
              but tell them by letter to avoid pollution from idols,
              unlawful marriage, the meat of strangled animals, and blood.
              For Moses, for generations now,
              has had those who proclaim him in every town,
              as he has been read in the synagogues every sabbath.”
              Responsorial Psalm
              PS 96:1-2A, 2B-3, 10
              R. (3) Proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations.
              or:
              R. Alleluia.
              Sing to the LORD a new song;
              sing to the LORD, all you lands.
              Sing to the LORD; bless his name.
              R. Proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations.
              or:
              R. Alleluia.
              Announce his salvation, day after day.
              Tell his glory among the nations;
              among all peoples, his wondrous deeds.
              R. Proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations.
              or:
              R. Alleluia.
              Say among the nations: The LORD is king.
              He has made the world firm, not to be moved;
              he governs the peoples with equity.
              R. Proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations.
              or:
              R. Alleluia.
              Gospel
              JN 15:9-11
              Jesus said to his disciples:
              “As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
              Remain in my love.
              If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
              just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
              and remain in his love.
              “I have told you this so that
              my joy might be in you and
              your joy might be complete.”

              The post Hearing Anew the Most Important Words of All Time, Fifth Thursday of Easter, May 2, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

              24 min
            • Bearing Fruit in Work through Our Communion with Christ, Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker, May 1, 2024

              Fr. Roger J. Landry
              Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
              Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter

              Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker
              May 1, 2024
              Acts 15:1-6, Ps 122, Jn 15:1-8

               

              To listen to today’s homily, please click below: 

              https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/5.1.24_Homily_1.mp3

               

              The following points were attempted in the homily: 

              • Today we mark the Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker, which was instituted 69 years ago in 1955 by Pope Pius XII both to give a spiritual context to “Labor Day” in many European countries as well as a spiritual response to the “May Day” celebrations in communist countries where the meaning of human work and the relationship between human worker and the State were distorted. Pope Pius XII wanted the whole Church on this day to go on pilgrimage to a carpenter’s shop in Nazareth to find in the hardworking St. Joseph and his diligent foster Son the key that unlocks the meaning of the dignity, beauty and redemptive importance of human labor as part of Christ’s mission of love, so that we might not perish but have eternal life. So many today are confused about how important work is. Some, for example, behave as if work is just a necessary evil that we have to endure until we earn enough money or get to the magic age when life can become an unending vacation on the golf course or lounging at the pool. Others fail to see in the crisis of unemployment, especially among the young, that we’re dealing with something far greater than a pressing economic problem, but rather a profoundly dehumanizing one that can gradually deprive millions of a sense of moral worth through a sense of being useless. And sometimes we can see a combination of both of these confusions when people who can work just choose not to do so, opting rather to take advantage of the generosity of family members or other workers in society so that they can seemingly remain on vacation 365 days a year. Insofar as most people will spend at least 25 percent of their week, from the time they’re five through when they’re 65 or older, doing some form of work, it’s important that we learn from St. Joseph how to turn our work into a pleasing offering to God.
              • Today’s readings help us to focus on aspects of the Gospel of Work epitomized by St. Joseph. In the Gospel, we have for the second time in four days the powerful and beautiful image of the Vine and the Branches. I won’t repeat what I said on Sunday at the student Mass. I want to highlight rather how the fruit of all our labor is meant to come from the unity we have with Jesus. Apart from him, we can do nothing; but with him, our work can become a crucial part of the redemption. Through the Sacrament of Baptism, we enter into an ontological communion with him, one intensified by the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. But he wants us to remain in a moral communion with him, by working together with him always. This union is the essence of the Christian life. We enter into an interpersonal communion with the Lord that flows into deeds. And through this mutual communion with Christ, we also enter, as we see in this image, into communion and collaboration with all others who are similarly attached as branches on the same Vine. At the end of today’s Gospel, he says, somewhat shockingly, that to become his disciples, we must bear fruit. To become his disciples, we must be in communion with him the Vine and allow his fruit to mature in us: that’s the way we become true disciples. Part of that fruit is our communion with others, which is, as Jesus would say later on Holy Thursday, one of the means by which the father will be glorified and the world know that the Father sent the Son and loves us like he loves the Son.
              • This focus on this communion with Christ and with others, and bearing fruit in communion, is the background for the dramatic firsts reading we have today, which documents one of the most pivotal events in the history of the Church. It’s the Council of Jerusalem, the first such Council in the history of the Church. It came about because “there arose no little dissension and debate” after some Christians coming from Judea were telling the Gentile Christians in Antioch, “Unless you are circumcised according to the Mosaic practice, you cannot be saved.” The question was far broader than merely of circumcision, but about the role of our action, our works, in salvation, something that similarly impinged upon the way we relate to God, the role of the Mosaic law in the faith and the manner in which Jewish and Gentile Christians were to behave with regard to each other. Paul, Barnabas and others had gone up to Jerusalem to confer with the apostles and priests about it. St. Paul was once a Pharisee and believed that salvation happened through the human act of rigid observance of the Mosaic Law in all its details. But after he was converted on the road to Damascus, converted from a false notion of the holy life to a true one, he began to see that one is saved by Christ and not by our own actions obeying all 613 commands and all the other precepts of the Mosaic law. We’re saved by God’s mercy rather than by our merit. We are saved by Christ’s attaching us to himself the Vine so that we can bear fruit not principally from our own efforts but by him working through us. He would spend most of his apostolic life proclaiming this truth. He wrote two letters (one to the Romans and another to the Galatians) explaining in detail how Christ, rather than the law, is our Savior, and he spent parts of two other letters (Colossians and Philippians) talking about how baptism rather than circumcision enters us into the life of faith and the Covenant with God. He brought all of these inspirations to the Council in Jerusalem and we’ll see tomorrow how the Holy Spirit led the early Church to the solution with regard to the Gentiles. We learn in this scene two essential truths. First, that we’re saved by God’s action to which we freely respond, not principally by our own action. The Mosaic law functions to help us prepare to receive the fullness of that saving action in Christ, when he comes to bring us fully into communion with God through his passion, death and resurrection and through the sacraments he instituted so that we might enter into his life. Second, we learn how to relate to each other. One of the reasons why this dispute between Jews and Gentiles was such a big deal was not simply the question of whether Gentiles needed to live as good Jews before they could be good Christians, but it was because stricter Jews, like the Pharisees, had no interaction with Gentiles. They avoided them as if they were lepers. They didn’t eat with them. They didn’t enter into their houses. This is the partial background as to why the Hellenist widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of the bread, because many of the Jewish Christians would just keep their cultural tradition of complete separation. That obviously couldn’t work in the communion of the Church. The Council of Jerusalem was crucial so that Christians would live in communion with each other, which is what Jesus intended from the beginning, that we would be one as he and the Father is one, all attached as fruitful branches of him the Vine.
              • St. Joseph is someone who shows us how to live this way. His work, especially after the incarnation, was all done for and in communion with his foster-son the God-man. And he is one who shows us how to collaborate with God and others in the Church to bear fruit that will last into eternity. These lessons of his life and of the Gospel have their source and summit from Christ in the Holy Eucharist. Jesus gave us the image of the Vine and the Branches on Holy Thursday so that we could enter into the Holy Communion with him to which the image of the vine and branches points. In the Mass we attach ourselves through the “transubstantiated fruit of the vine,” through Christ’s Body and Blood, to Him and in that communion, enter into a bond with others far greater than blood. And we don’t celebrate Mass with the raw material of grain and grapes, but rather bread and wine, which are not just the gifts of God but the “work of human hands.” From the beginning Jesus wanted to incorporate our collaboration into his supreme sacrifice. It’s here at Mass that we learn how to pray our work so that the entire world becomes God’s work shop. As we enter more deeply into this mystery of the Vine and the Branches, let us pray that we may abide in Christ so much that we, like St. Joseph, might bear fruit always for the Father’s glory,  do our work well all the days of our life, and come at last, together with each other, with St. Joseph and all the saints, to abide in God forever.

                •  

                The readings for today’s Mass were: 
                Reading 1
                ACTS 15:1-6
                Some who had come down from Judea were instructing the brothers,
                “Unless you are circumcised according to the Mosaic practice,
                you cannot be saved.”
                Because there arose no little dissension and debate
                by Paul and Barnabas with them,
                it was decided that Paul, Barnabas, and some of the others
                should go up to Jerusalem to the Apostles and presbyters
                about this question.
                They were sent on their journey by the Church,
                and passed through Phoenicia and Samaria
                telling of the conversion of the Gentiles,
                and brought great joy to all the brethren.
                When they arrived in Jerusalem,
                they were welcomed by the Church,
                as well as by the Apostles and the presbyters,
                and they reported what God had done with them.
                But some from the party of the Pharisees who had become believers
                stood up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them
                and direct them to observe the Mosaic law.”
                The Apostles and the presbyters met together to see about this matter.
                Responsorial Psalm
                PS 122:1-2, 3-4AB, 4CD-5
                R. (see 1)  Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
                or:
                R. Alleluia.
                I rejoiced because they said to me,
                “We will go up to the house of the LORD.”
                And now we have set foot
                within your gates, O Jerusalem.
                R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
                or:
                R. Alleluia.
                Jerusalem, built as a city
                with compact unity.
                To it the tribes go up,
                the tribes of the LORD.
                R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
                or:
                R. Alleluia.
                According to the decree for Israel,
                to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
                In it are set up judgment seats,
                seats for the house of David.
                R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
                or:
                R. Alleluia.
                Gospel
                JN 15:1-8
                Jesus said to his disciples:
                “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.
                He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit,
                and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.
                You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.
                Remain in me, as I remain in you.
                Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own
                unless it remains on the vine,
                so neither can you unless you remain in me.
                I am the vine, you are the branches.
                Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit,
                because without me you can do nothing.
                Anyone who does not remain in me
                will be thrown out like a branch and wither;
                people will gather them and throw them into a fire
                and they will be burned.
                If you remain in me and my words remain in you,
                ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.
                By this is my Father glorified,
                that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

                The post Bearing Fruit in Work through Our Communion with Christ, Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker, May 1, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

                20 min
              • Receiving and Sharing the Lord’s Gift of Peace, Fifth Tuesday of Easter, April 30, 2024

                Fr. Roger J. Landry

                Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
                Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Easter
                Memorial of St. Pius V
                April 30, 2024
                Acts 14:19-28, Ps 145, Jn 14:27-31

                 

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

                https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/4.30.24_Homily_1.mp3

                 

                The following points were attempted in the homily: 

                • One of the greatest paradoxes in the Christian faith, one of the most important things for us to grasp and live, involves the reality of God’s peace in the Christian life, especially in times of strife like we now have on the Columbia campus or of persecution, like the Church has endures in every century and continues to endure. Jesus tells us in the Gospel today and reiterates for us in every Mass, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.” He was saying these words to the apostles just hours before he would be arrested and on the vigil of his being massacred by Roman soldiers. He wanted them to remain at peace during all that would transpire, just as he would be at peace. At the beginning of this discourse, which we heard on Friday, Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God. Have faith also in me.” Today he repeats those words, “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” He reiterates that he is going away but will come back and has given them these words of peace before everything would transpire “so that when it happens you may believe.”
                • Now that it has happened, and the Church reflects on these words in the light of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, it’s important to check how deeply we believe in these words about peace (and everything else) Jesus tells us. He reminds them that the “ruler of this world is coming” but clarifies that “he has no power over me.” Jesus will allow everything that will occur to happen to him so that the world will know “that I love the Father and that I do just as the Father has commanded me.” Jesus peacefully underwent even his crucifixion in order to show his love for the Father, because real love is shown in trial. Jesus was able to say these words because, as we’ve been talking about all Easter season long, by his resurrection he would show that not even a brutal crucifixion is enough to take one’s peace away, that there’s nothing truly to be afraid of, that in the end God triumphs and all of us who live and die in him will share that victory. That’s the ultimate ground for the peace he gives us and leaves with us. Our peace is grounded in our living relationship with him, the Prince of Peace. It is made possible by the peace treaty he signs in his own blood with God the Father through his mercy. It’s made possible by the gift of the Holy Spirit that he and the Father send. We see both fully on display on Easter Sunday evening when Jesus enters the closed doors of the Upper Room, twice wishes his startled followers peace, and then says “Receive the Holy Spirit” and “those whose sins you forgive are forgiven.” Pope Francis said several years ago in a homily in the Vatican that the peace Jesus leaves and gives is fundamentally the Holy Spirit, remembering that when Jesus in the Upper Room wished the apostles “peace be with you,” he then breathed on them and said “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The peace that Jesus leaves with us, the peace that the world can’t give or rob, is the peace that flows from our grounding our entire life on God. If God is our treasure, if God is our foundation, if Jesus is our way, truth and life, if we’ve constructed our existence on him the cornerstone, if we are living by the Holy Spirit, then persecution, trouble, or even crucifixion can’t take that peace away but rather can confirm it.
                • If this is true, why is there such lack of peace in the world, in our country, on our campus, in so many of our families, parishes and dioceses, in the Church universal, and in our own hearts? That’s because the vast majority of people haven’t truly based their lives on God but are placing their treasure in things that won’t last. Jesus described the path of peace and happiness in the Beatitudes, but few of us really live by what he teaches us. Many place their peace in money rather in God’s kingdom, and if the stock market takes a dive, if the economy goes into recession, if the gas bill skyrockets, they immediately are destabilized. Jesus says that the path of peace is the path of spiritual poverty that finds its true wealth in what thieves can’t destroy, rust can’t corrode, or the IRS can’t tax or confiscate. Many of us place our peace in other people’s affection and admiration, but this, too, is insecure. As soon as someone turns on us, rightly or wrongly, we lose our peace. Jesus, on the other hand, teaches us that if our peace is founded on him, we won’t lose it even when people revile us and utter all kinds of evil against us falsely because of him. Jesus ultimately says that our peace needs to be based on hungering and thirsting for righteousness, for holiness, for a just relationship with God. If we have this, then we can’t lose it, even under trial. The only way we can lose it would be through sin, which is placing something or someone else above God — and the lack of peace that results is medicinally and mercifully meant to bring us back to the Sacrament Jesus established to restore our peace with him.
                • This lesson Jesus teaches us about the foundation of peace is illustrated powerfully in today’s first reading. Saints Paul and Barnabas were full of peace and no one could take that away from them. At the beginning of today’s passage, Jews from Antioch in Pisidia and Iconium arrived in Lystra, won over the crowds, and proceeded to stone Paul, just as he himself had once presided over the stoning of St. Stephen. They dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. It’s almost certain that he was in fact dead, not just unconscious. If people were intent on stoning someone to death, they wouldn’t just hurl stones and walk away, but they’d ensure that the stones had accomplished their homicidal purpose. Likewise the disciples could easily have observed whether Paul was breathing or had a pulse and they, too, thought him dead. But they didn’t lose hope or peace. St. Luke, an eyewitness and a doctor, tells us that the disciples “gathered around him.” They prayed to Jesus who had risen from the dead to allow Paul to experience that resurrection. And he did! And then we observe the strength that comes from the peace Christ gives: though Paul was doubtless was full of lumps, black eyes and discolored bruises all over his body, instead of nursing his wounds, instead of moving on to another city lest he undergo anew that same fate, he with incredible courage and also deep peace returned to the city. He was not “troubled or afraid” in the least. He had the peace that comes from a living relationship with the risen Lord Jesus. And from there, he and Barnabas retraced their steps along their first missionary journey, returning to the places where they faced opposition and were run out of town — Derbe, Iconium, Antioch in Pisidia — on their way back to the disciples in Antioch in Syria.
                • Along the way, Paul strengthened the spirit of the disciples who must have been concerned about his wounds and his safety and encouraged them to persevere in the faith by saying “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.” He let them know that they, like he, would have to undergo many trials, but that none of those should rob them of their peace or their faith. Those would be opportunities for them, just as for Jesus and Paul before them, to show that they “love the Father” and “do just as the Father has commanded.” Real love costs, and our willingness to suffer hardships for the Lord who suffered crucifixion for us is a means by which not only we grow in faith and express our faith, but an opportunity to ground ourselves more and more in God, in his peace, in his holy will that seeks to bring good even out of evil, even out of what we suffer. The early Christians in large part received this message and, through many hardships, grew in faith and in number. And their peace in the midst of everything was one of the most powerful proclamations of the Gospel that they would ever have been able to announce to the world. And it was in bringing that message and means of peace that they were peacemakers and children of God.
                • Somebody who lived with this peace at a time of ecclesial, social and even international turmoil and sought to help to do so is Pope St. Pius V, whom the Church celebrates today. A Dominican priest, Antonio Ghislieri was elected mainly due to the work of St. Charles Borromeo, who saw him as the one who would help the Church find peace and true reform after the Protestant Reformation by implementing the Council of Trent. He reformed the Church’s liturgy and structures so that we might better encounter the Prince of Peace liturgically. He reformed the way the Church prayed the Mass, various of the Sacraments, and the liturgy of the hours. He helped form the first seminaries to train future priests so that they might be effective peacemakers in the peace Christ gives and leaves. His example of sanctity, through prayer and fasting, and his strong leadership in the Church, helped reform Rome and beyond. At his coronation, rather than distribute money lavishly to the crowd as was the custom, he gave it to the directly to the poor; rather than a banquet for the cardinals, prelates and civil leaders, he sent food to the convents of the city. And he sought to help the Church become more Marian, since he knew that the Queen of Peace was the person par excellence who teaches us how to relate to her Son the Prince of Peace. Most famously, St. Pius V showed the peace that comes from faith and prayer, from trust in Christ and in Mary’s prayer, when Muslims were seeking to invade Europe in 1571. As Christian sailors were battling the Muslim fleets off the coast of Greece, Pope St. Pius V led the Church in prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary at Santa Maria sopra Minerva by means of the Rosary. God permitted him miraculously to see images of what was happening in battle hundreds of miles away, images that proved true when triumphant Christian sailors returned to Rome months later and gave detailed accounts. He shows us how prayer and charity are meant to help us live in Christ’s peace and extend it.
                • At Mass each day we have the privilege to enter into Communion with the Prince of Peace who leaves and gives his peace literally in person. This is the peace he wants us to share with each other. It’s important for us truly to pray the part of the Mass in which we wish each other peace. At the beginning of Mass, we pray that the “grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” be with each other. In the Sign of Peace, we pray that the Peace of the Lord will be with each other always. In the Agnus Dei, we ask the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world that rob us of our spiritual serenity to “grant us peace.” And at the end of Mass, we open ourselves to receive the blessing God will give us at the end of Mass so that we will “go in peace,” glorifying the Lord by our lives of peace even in the midst of any or all hardships may come, so that we and others may enter the Lord’s kingdom. The peace of the Lord be with you always!

                  •  

                  These were the readings for today’s Mass: 

                  Reading 1 ACTS 14:19-28
                  In those days, some Jews from Antioch and Iconium
                  arrived and won over the crowds.
                  They stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city,
                  supposing that he was dead.
                  But when the disciples gathered around him,
                  he got up and entered the city.
                  On the following day he left with Barnabas for Derbe.
                  After they had proclaimed the good news to that city
                  and made a considerable number of disciples,
                  they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch.
                  They strengthened the spirits of the disciples
                  and exhorted them to persevere in the faith, saying,
                  “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships
                  to enter the Kingdom of God.”
                  They appointed presbyters for them in each Church and,
                  with prayer and fasting, commended them to the Lord
                  in whom they had put their faith.
                  Then they traveled through Pisidia and reached Pamphylia.
                  After proclaiming the word at Perga they went down to Attalia.
                  From there they sailed to Antioch,
                  where they had been commended to the grace of God
                  for the work they had now accomplished.
                  And when they arrived, they called the Church together
                  and reported what God had done with them
                  and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.
                  Then they spent no little time with the disciples.
                  Responsorial Psalm PS 145:10-11, 12-13AB, 21
                  R.(see 12) Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
                  or:
                  R. Alleluia.
                  Let all your works give you thanks, O LORD,
                  and let your faithful ones bless you.
                  Let them discourse of the glory of your kingdom
                  and speak of your might.
                  R. Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
                  or:
                  R. Alleluia.
                  Making known to men your might
                  and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
                  Your kingdom is a kingdom for all ages,
                  and your dominion endures through all generations.
                  R. Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
                  or:
                  R. Alleluia.
                  May my mouth speak the praise of the LORD,
                  and may all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.
                  R. Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
                  or:
                  R. Alleluia.
                  Alleluia SEE LK 24:46, 26
                  R. Alleluia, alleluia.
                  Christ had to suffer and to rise from the dead,
                  and so enter into his glory.
                  R. Alleluia, alleluia.
                  Gospel JN 14:27-31A
                  Jesus said to his disciples:
                  “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.
                  Not as the world gives do I give it to you.
                  Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
                  You heard me tell you,
                  ‘I am going away and I will come back to you.’
                  If you loved me,
                  you would rejoice that I am going to the Father;
                  for the Father is greater than I.
                  And now I have told you this before it happens,
                  so that when it happens you may believe.
                  I will no longer speak much with you,
                  for the ruler of the world is coming.
                  He has no power over me,
                  but the world must know that I love the Father
                  and that I do just as the Father has commanded me.”

                  The post Receiving and Sharing the Lord’s Gift of Peace, Fifth Tuesday of Easter, April 30, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

                  16 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.

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