Catholic Preaching

By Father Roger LandryReligion & Spirituality Christianity

Catholic Preaching episodes

March 09, 2024 God Appealing through Us: Ambassadors of the Eucharistic Christ, Parish Mission at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, Grand Rapids, MI, March 9, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, Grand Rapids, Michigan
“Extraordinary Help for a Holy Lent:
The Eucharistic Revival and Jesus’ Call to Pray, Fast and Give Alms”
March 9, 2024
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.9.24_Eucharistic_Apostolate_Grand_Rapids_1.mp3
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58 min
March 09, 2024 Eucharistic-Driven Almsgiving, Parish Mission at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, Grand Rapids, MI, March 9, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, Grand Rapids, Michigan
“Extraordinary Help for a Holy Lent:
The Eucharistic Revival and Jesus’ Call to Pray, Fast and Give Alms”
March 9, 2024
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.9.24_Eucharistic-Driven_Charity.mp3
The post Eucharistic-Driven Almsgiving, Parish Mission at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, Grand Rapids, MI, March 9, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
35 min
March 09, 2024 Going into the Desert: Adoring God Alone, Parish Mission at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, Grand Rapids, MI, March 9, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, Grand Rapids, Michigan
“Extraordinary Help for a Holy Lent:
The Eucharistic Revival and Jesus’ Call to Pray, Fast and Give Alms”
March 9, 2024
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.9.24_Adoration_1.mp3
The post Going into the Desert: Adoring God Alone, Parish Mission at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, Grand Rapids, MI, March 9, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
53 min
March 09, 2024Giving God the Worship He Desires, Saturday of the Third Week of Lent, March 9, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, Grand Rapids, Michigan
“Extraordinary Help for a Holy Lent:
The Eucharistic Revival and Jesus’ Call to Pray, Fast and Give Alms”
Saturday of the Second Week of Lent
Memorial of St. Frances of Rome
March 9, 2024
Hos 6:1-6, Ps 51, Lk 18:9-14

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.9.24_Homily_1.mp3

The text that guided the homily was:
Today, as we seek to enter more deeply into the Eucharistic dimension of Lent during this Parish Retreat, the readings help us focus on the right worship of God and, in particular, the need for God’s mercy in being able to worship God as he desires. Pope Benedict once commented on the fact that at the beginning of the Last Supper Christ washed the feet of his apostles. In Jesus’ dialogue with St. Peter, when Peter first objected to having Christ do the work of a slave and wash his feet, Jesus told him that unless he allowed him to wash his feet, Peter would have no part in him. Then Peter exuberantly asked to have not just his feet washed but his hands and head as well. Jesus, however, told him that one who has been bathed has no need but to have his feet washed. In a beautiful symbolic interpretation of the scene, Pope Benedict said that the bathing to which Jesus referred was baptism and the washing of the feet — that part of us that comes into contact with the world — refers to the Sacrament of Confession. It is a prelude to how, in order to celebrate Mass well, to worship God well, we must come cleansed by God’s mercy.
“I desire mercy!,” God says to us today through the Prophet Hosea and we repeat several times in the Responsorial Psalm. God desires mercy! He desires mercy in two ways. First, he desires to share with us his mercy. God’s greatest joy is forgiving, Pope Francis continually repeats, following upon what Jesus teaches us in the three parables of the Lost Sheep, Coin and Sons. He wants us to receive that gift of his compassionate love. But he also desires that we, having received it, be transformed so that we, too, may pass on that mercy to others. He stresses that he desires mercy instead of sacrifice, with sacrifice understood as the slaughtering of animals as an external act of repentant expiation. The type of sacrifice he wants, as we pray in today’s Psalm, is a “contrite spirit,” for “a heart contrite and humbled” God will never spurn. We seek to come before the Lord at Mass with that type of spirit and heart, made so by his mercy that wipes out our offenses, thoroughly washes us from our guilt and cleanses us of our sins.
God wants us to grow in our receiving his mercy and our sharing in it. That’s what’s pointed to in the image of Hosea in today’s first reading. God tells us through his prophet that the piety of those in Ephraim (Samaria) and Judah is “like a morning cloud, like the dew that early passes away.” It’s a powerful simile. In context, their faithfulness to receiving and sharing God’s merciful love is like dew on the grass that just doesn’t last. It evaporates as the day draws near, the sun rises and the day goes on. It’s an indication that God’s people started out faithfully early in life but that their piety dissipated. The Lord was declaring through the prophet that he wanted to show mercy, but that they had lost the desire to receive it. The Lord had been trying to bring them to conversion, but they were superficial like the evaporating dew. Hosea therefore exhorts them, “Come, let us return to the Lord, it is he who has rent, but he will heal us; he has struck us, but he will bind our wounds. He will revive us after two days; on the third day he will raise us up, to live in his presence [a clear reference to how he will do it through Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection!] … He will come to us like the rain, like spring rain that waters the earth.” The upshot is that sometimes our life, sometimes our day, can begin like the beautiful refreshing dew with all types of sentiments and actions of piety and faith, with great recognition of our need for God and his merciful love, but then we allow that inner reverence and love to fade; we have the good intentions to serve God in our prayer and in our work but over time those graces wither as we begin to focus on ourselves. God wants to arouse us. As Pope Francis said during his first Angelus message 11 years ago this upcoming week, “God never tires of forgiving, but we often tire of asking for forgiveness,” before praying, “May we never tire of asking for what God never tires to give.” The Parable Jesus gives us today is a mirror by which we can examine how we’ve come here “to the temple” today at the break of dawn to pray, whether we are seeking what he values most, whether we’re open to the mercy he wants to give, whether we’re intent on worshiping according to his categories or our own.
Jesus’ famous Parable of the Pharisee and Publican is one of his most powerful illustrations of how God’s desire is to justify us through his mercy. In the parable, Jesus describes two men who went up to the temple to pray. The first man was a Pharisee. He prayed, “Thank you, God, that I am not like the rest of humanity — greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.” The man was what most people would deem today a good religious man. He was regularly climbing up to Jerusalem on foot to the temple to pray. He, like his fellow Pharisees, was doubtless going far beyond the minimum in the practice of the faith. Whereas Jews were required to fast only once a year on the Day of Atonement, the Pharisees fasted twice a week. Whereas Jews needed to tithe only certain things, he tithed on his whole income. He was outwardly a religious role model, but inwardly there was something drastically wrong in his conception of God, his conception of the faith, and his conception of others. He didn’t relate to God as one in need of his mercy and he seemed to have little mercy for others. The first clue is that Jesus said, “He spoke this prayer to himself.” That doesn’t mean that he simply said it quietly so that he alone could hear, but rather, in a sense, he was praying that prayer to himself, as if he were something special. He thanked God that he was not like so many other spiritual “losers,” who were thieves, rogues, adulterers and publicans. He rejoiced in what he saw were his virtues, but what he failed to recognize was that he was proud, judgmental, vain, boastful and uncharitable. He failed to see his own sinfulness. He failed to ask God for mercy because he didn’t think he needed it. He was satisfied with saying his prayers, giving his tithes, completing his fasts, rather than recognizing that the Lord was trying to rend him so that he might receive mercy and then share that mercy with others, including the tax collector praying behind him. Compared to so many surrounding him, and the other person praying in the temple, the Pharisee considered himself a saint among sinners.
The tax collector, on the other hand, was hated by his fellow Jews not just because he was collaborating with the Romans who were subjugating the Jewish people, but because in the carrying out of his duty, tax collectors would routinely rip off their people for greed. They were assessed a certain amount that needed to be collected in a given area; whatever they could get beyond that was theirs to keep, and many of the tax collectors, with the collusion of nearby Roman soldiers, were ripping off the poor in order to get rich. They were corrupt, like an ancient mafia class that the authorities with whom they were conspiring would do nothing about. We would think that someone in this circumstance, who had given his life over to this type of betrayal of his nation and betrayal of so many people who lived around him, wouldn’t pray at all. For him to pray, some might say, seemed hypocritical. But he knew that even if others might never forgive him, God could, and he saw how much he needed God’s forgiveness. With no arrogance whatsoever, no self-importance, and great humility, he stayed in the back of the temple, beat his breast and said, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” He was conscious that he didn’t deserve forgiveness, but knew that the Lord was kind and merciful, that the Lord’s mercy endures forever, and with profound sorrow, with a humble and contrite spirit, he prayed for that gift.
Jesus gave a startling conclusion to the parable. He told his listeners that of the two, the good man who fasted, tithed and lived outwardly by the mosaic law, and the detested one who ripped off his own people and conspired with the pagan authorities, only one of them had their prayer heard and left the temple in a right relationship with God — and it was the publican! We’ve heard the parable so many times that we can miss the absolute shock that Jesus’ first listeners would have had in response to it. To understand their surprise, it would be like Jesus’ today substituting a religious sister for a Pharisee and a pimp, drug pusher or abortionist for the publican and said that when the two left the Church only the latter was justified, on truly good terms with God. It would be like he said a priest and a hit man went to Church to pray but the only one who left justified was the repentant assassin. Such a comment was not about the type of life they had been leading until then, but about the type of humble prayer they made and how they had arrived at the temple and were preparing to leave. Jesus is teaching us that we, too, need to learn to pray humbly and perseveringly with a deep recognition of our need for God’s mercy, which is what he desires to give us most of all and desires us to give to others.
That ought to have practical consequences for us as we today have come to Church to pray here at Mass during this Lenten mission. Are we praying with a humble and contrite spirit like the Publican or with the self-righteousness of the Pharisee? At the beginning of Mass this morning, did we really mean the words we said, that “I have greatly sinned … through my most grievous fault.? Did we beat our breasts with sincere repentance? Did we really pour ourselves into praying “Lord, have mercy! Christ, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!,” filled with truthful desperation because we know how much we need it? Later in the Mass, when we pray the “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world,” will we passionately cry out, “have mercy on us, have mercy on us, and grant us peace” from our sins? And perhaps most poignantly, when that Lamb of God is elevated and we behold him, will we pray with great conviction the words, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed?” Most of us at least partially mean these words we pray. We recognize we’re sinners “just like everyone else.” We grasp God’s desire for mercy and we wish to receive it, at least a “little” or “as much as others.” We know that in the past we may have needed it more than we do today, but we recognize, because we regularly examine our consciences and go to confession, that we are sinners and the only reason we might not be notorious ones is by God’s prevenient mercy. But often we don’t persevere in this cry for mercy. Our desire for, recognition of, and sharing in God’s mercy passes, as Hosea says, “like a morning cloud, like the dew that early passes away.” God, rather, wants to help us grow.
Today we’ve all come to Mass to pray and to learn during this mission how to know, believe in, be amazed by, love, and adore our Eucharistic Lord better and, from our encounter with him, learn to live more Eucharistic lives. We’ve all come at least with the morning dew of a desire to pray, but the Lord wants us to help us persevere so that we may be washed in the spring rain of his merciful love. Whether we’re more like the Pharisee in terms of filling our day with religious practices or like the Publican, who in action lived far from the Lord, all of us, however, want to leave this Mass and this Mission justified. On Tuesday we pondered at Mass the words from the Book of Daniel the priest prays after offering the chalice, right before his hands are washed. They dovetail with the words of today’s Responsorial Psalm and are meant to help us all make the type of sacrifice God considers pleasing: “With contrite heart and humble spirit let us be received [by you, Lord]; so let our sacrifice be in your presence today,” that it may be pleasing to you, Lord God. In the Psalm today, we prayed, “A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn!” To worship God well, we must approach him with contrite and humble hearts, conscious of how much we need God and particularly his mercy. The Mass we offer to the Lord is in fact the greatest prayer of all for mercy. As Jesus taught St. Faustina, we offer to the Eternal Father “the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of his dearly beloved Son, in atonement for our sins and for those of the whole world.” We offer the Mass — Christ’s sacrifice from Calvary as well as our sacrifice united to his — in expiation for our sins and in reparation for the sins of the world. This is fitting worship. This is what God deserves and desires. As we prepare to receive in this Mass Mercy Incarnate, our Eucharistic Lord, let us ask him for all the help he knows we need to pray this Mass well, and to enter into communion with him who gave us his body and blood during the Last Supper and on the Cross “for the remission of sins,” so that we may leave this temple dedicated to him and his Sacred Heart, “justified,” persevering in a right relationship with him not just until the sun rises to dissipate the dew but throughout our life life until he comes for us on the clouds.

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1
Hos 6:1-6
“Come, let us return to the LORD,
it is he who has rent, but he will heal us;
he has struck us, but he will bind our wounds.
He will revive us after two days;
on the third day he will raise us up,
to live in his presence.
Let us know, let us strive to know the LORD;
as certain as the dawn is his coming,
and his judgment shines forth like the light of day!
He will come to us like the rain,
like spring rain that waters the earth.”What can I do with you, Ephraim?
What can I do with you, Judah?
Your piety is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that early passes away.
For this reason I smote them through the prophets,
I slew them by the words of my mouth;
For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice,
and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
Responsorial Psalm
PS 51:3-4, 18-19, 20-21ab
R. (see Hosea 6:6) It is mercy I desire, and not sacrifice.
Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me.
R. It is mercy I desire, and not sacrifice.
For you are not pleased with sacrifices;
should I offer a burnt offering, you would not accept it.
My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.
R. It is mercy I desire, and not sacrifice.
Be bountiful, O LORD, to Zion in your kindness
by rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem;
Then shall you be pleased with due sacrifices,
burnt offerings and holocausts.
R. It is mercy I desire, and not sacrifice.
Verse Before the Gospel Ps 95:8
If today you hear his voice,
harden not your hearts.
Gospel
Lk 18:9-14
Jesus addressed this parable
to those who were convinced of their own righteousness
and despised everyone else.
“Two people went up to the temple area to pray;
one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself,
‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity —
greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week,
and I pay tithes on my whole income.’
But the tax collector stood off at a distance
and would not even raise his eyes to heaven
but beat his breast and prayed,
‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’
I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former;
for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
The post Giving God the Worship He Desires, Saturday of the Third Week of Lent, March 9, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
18 min
March 09, 2024Fourth Sunday of Lent (B), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, March 9, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, B, Vigil
March 9, 2024

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.9.24_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

The following text guided the homily:
This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege to join you again and ponder with you the consequential conversation Jesus wants to have with us in the Gospel this Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Lent, which the Church calls Laetare Sunday, a title taken from the first word in Latin of the entrance antiphon for this Sunday’s Mass: “Laetare, Ierusalem”: “Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her. Be joyful, all who were in mourning: exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast.” Those words of consolation, originally given by the prophet Isaiah to the exiled Jews in Babylon, are just a small sign of the far greater liberation and joy that Jesus was going to bring into the world, a liberation from the exile and alienation caused by sin, and a freedom from the captivity to which sin leads, death. That’s a message that’s supposed to make not just Jerusalem rejoice during a time of ongoing turmoil in the Holy Land, but New York, Washington, Miami, Los Angeles, Rome, Paris and indeed every city, town, village and place.
That joy is because of the unfathomable love of God that would stop at nothing to redeem us. The Church has us ponder that love in the Gospel this Sunday, when St. John tells us, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” The Evangelist adds, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,” to render to us strict justice on account of our sins, “but so that the world might be saved through him.” While the human race was in a far worse situation than the ancient Jews in Babylon, God himself sent someone greater than the King of Persia to set us free. He sent his own Son. When God the Father had a choice to allow us to die in eternal exile or allow his Son to take our place on death row and be brutally mocked and crucified, he loved us in some sense even more than his Son. He chose to save our life by allowing his Son to give his. This indescribable love is an incredible cause for joy! This love of God that would pull out all the stops in order to save us is the root of all Christian joy.
But it’s important for us not to hear this message in a softened and sentimentalized way. It’s great that so many plaster “John 3:16” on football stadiums around the country proclaiming our joy that God loves the world and us so much, but at the same time, sometimes many don’t see the contradiction when during those same football games, some players stomp on their adversaries with their cleats and curse in huddles as huge numbers of fans are getting plastered in the stands watching scantily clad cheerleaders stoke their concupiscence like Herod Antipas and his drunken courtiers watched Salome dance. For us to enter into the joy that comes from Christ’s love, we need to grasp what it cost, and what response it demands.
Jesus describes that cost in his conversation with Nicodemus in the Gospel passage this Sunday. For those of you who have watched the crowd-funded television series The Chosen, you know that much has been made in the first season of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, who not only is a member of the Sanhedrin, but also a searcher for the truth. In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus challenges Nicodemus to open his mind to the truth he came into the world to bring. Jesus tells him first about the need for baptism. Then he states in Biblical language what he would do on the Cross to make Baptism effect what it signified. Jesus says in this Sunday’s passage: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life.” That was an allusion first to the work of the ancient serpent, who got Adam and Eve in the Garden to distrust God, to sin, and essentially to choose death over life. But then the allusion pointed to what God had allowed to happen to the Jews in the desert as they were complaining about what they had to eat, and distrusting anew in the One who with multiple miracles had just saved them from Pharaoh. As the Book of Numbers describes, God allowed saraph serpents to slither among them and bite them with poisonous venom. The antidote God prescribed to save them was to have Moses make a bronze serpent and mount it on a staff, and those who looked on that serpent — a reminder of the sins that had infected them with a fatal bodily and spiritual venom — they would be saved. Jesus said that he on the Cross would become like that elevated bronze serpent. He would suck the poison of sin out of our wounds and take it with him to Calvary. As we sinners looked at him on the Cross, we would see, first, just what our sins had done; second, we would grasp that we can’t save ourselves from our sins by our own efforts; and, third, we would behold the great love of God who would take on those sins and the death to which they inexorably lead in order to provide us the saving antitoxin.
But the type of glance we need to give to Jesus lifted up on the Cross must not remain merely a thing of the lenses and visual cortex. To be saved we need to look with the eyes of faith, a faith that has to become a way of life. That’s what St. John expresses immediately after the consoling words about the depth of God’s love. “Whoever believes” in Jesus, he tells us, “will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned.” He forcefully reminds us that just like those in Jerusalem prior to the exile refused to listen to the prophets, so we can refuse to listen to Jesus, to look upon him with the eyes of grateful faith, and to receive his free gift of salvation. “This is the verdict,” St. John states: “that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light. … But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.” To look on Jesus lifted up on the Cross with the eyes of faith means to enter into the logic of the Cross. It means to heed Jesus’ words we hear every Lent, to deny ourselves, pick up our Cross each day and follow him, leaving the darkness of sin behind and entering with him into the fullness of light. Like St. John, we must behold the one we have pierced and see the saving, transformative blood and water flowing from his side. Like St. Paul, we need to look at Christ on the Cross in a way that leads us to become one with his saving love. “I have been crucified with Christ,” St. Paul would write to the Galatians, “and it is no longer even I who live but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me!” That’s why St. Paul was able to glory and boast in nothing “except the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified to me and I to the world.” That’s why, when Jews found the Cross a scandal (that the Messiah would be murdered by the very occupying forces from whose clutches they anticipated he would liberate them) and the Greeks a folly (that someone would be so dumb as to be publicly tortured and ignominiously executed), St. Paul was able to find in the Cross his power and glory. He found in the Cross the source of the healing we most need!
What Jesus explained to Nicodemus in the Gospel, and fulfilled on Golgotha, takes on special meaning at Mass. It’s at Mass that we behold Jesus lifted up not as a bronze serpent on a pole but as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world elevated by the hands of his priests. It’s at Mass that we encounter the awesome truth that God so loved the world so much that not only did he give his Son in Palestine 2,000 years ago, but shows that love even more by giving us his Son daily on the altar and making his Son’s forgiveness available to us, in many places every day, in the Sacrament of Penance. As we prepare for Mass, let us get ready to look on Christ, lifted up on the Cross, lifted up in the host, and say, with Saint John and all the members of the Church, “We have come to know and to believe in the love God us for us!” (1 John 4:10). We have, indeed, come to trust in him and in saving mercy! We have come to believe in his light and and to desire to live in the light of his truth so that all our works, and indeed our whole life, may be clearly seen as lived in God.Laetare, Jerusalem! Indeed, Rejoice, Jerusalem! Rejoice, O world! Rejoice, listeners to Conversations with Consequences! God’s merciful love is real and God loves us so much that he never ceases to share that gift with us, so that we might not perish but have life with him forever!

The Gospel passage on which the homily was based was:
Reading I
2 Chr 36:14-16, 19-23
In those days, all the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people
added infidelity to infidelity,
practicing all the abominations of the nations
and polluting the LORD’s temple
which he had consecrated in Jerusalem.
Early and often did the LORD, the God of their fathers,
send his messengers to them,
for he had compassion on his people and his dwelling place.
But they mocked the messengers of God,
despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets,
until the anger of the LORD against his people was so inflamed
that there was no remedy.
Their enemies burnt the house of God,
tore down the walls of Jerusalem,
set all its palaces afire,
and destroyed all its precious objects.
Those who escaped the sword were carried captive to Babylon,
where they became servants of the king of the Chaldeans and his sons
until the kingdom of the Persians came to power.
All this was to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah:
“Until the land has retrieved its lost sabbaths,
during all the time it lies waste it shall have rest
while seventy years are fulfilled.”
In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia,
in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah,
the LORD inspired King Cyrus of Persia
to issue this proclamation throughout his kingdom,
both by word of mouth and in writing:
“Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia:
All the kingdoms of the earth
the LORD, the God of heaven, has given to me,
and he has also charged me to build him a house
in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
Whoever, therefore, among you belongs to any part of his people,
let him go up, and may his God be with him!”
Responsorial Psalm
137:1-2, 3, 4-5, 6
R. (6ab) Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
By the streams of Babylon
we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the aspens of that land
we hung up our harps.
R. Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
For there our captors asked of us
the lyrics of our songs,
And our despoilers urged us to be joyous:
“Sing for us the songs of Zion!”
R. Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
How could we sing a song of the LORD
in a foreign land?
If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand be forgotten!
R. Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
May my tongue cleave to my palate
if I remember you not,
If I place not Jerusalem
ahead of my joy.
R. Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
Reading II
Eph 2:4-10
Brothers and sisters:
God, who is rich in mercy,
because of the great love he had for us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions,
brought us to life with Christ — by grace you have been saved —,
raised us up with him,
and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,
that in the ages to come
He might show the immeasurable riches of his grace
in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith,
and this is not from you; it is the gift of God;
it is not from works, so no one may boast.
For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works
that God has prepared in advance,
that we should live in them.
Verse Before the Gospel
Jn 3:16
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so everyone who believes in him might have eternal life.
Gospel
Jn 3:14-21
Jesus said to Nicodemus:
“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved through him.
Whoever believes in him will not be condemned,
but whoever does not believe has already been condemned,
because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
And this is the verdict,
that the light came into the world,
but people preferred darkness to light,
because their works were evil.
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light
and does not come toward the light,
so that his works might not be exposed.
But whoever lives the truth comes to the light,
so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.

The post Fourth Sunday of Lent (B), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, March 9, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
9 min
March 09, 2024 Hungering for What Jesus Hungers: Fasting for the Feast of Faith, Parish Mission at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, Grand Rapids, MI, March 8, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, Grand Rapids, Michigan
“Extraordinary Help for a Holy Lent:
The Eucharistic Revival and Jesus’ Call to Pray, Fast and Give Alms”
March 8, 2024
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.8.24_Hungering_for_what_God_hungers.mp3
The post Hungering for What Jesus Hungers: Fasting for the Feast of Faith, Parish Mission at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, Grand Rapids, MI, March 8, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
57 min
March 08, 2024Walking in the Straight and Loving Paths of the Lord, Friday of the Second Week of Lent, March 8, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Campus Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Friday of the Third Week of Lent
Memorial of St. John of God
March 8, 2024
Hos 14:2-10, Ps 81, Mk 12:28-34

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.8.24_Homily_1.mp3

The following points were attempted in the homily:
On Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, God made a special appeal to each of us through the Prophet Joel: “Return to me with your whole heart.” He asked us to “rend our hearts,” to rip them open to receive his merciful love and to share his compassion with others, a summons that not only should influence the way we read today’s Gospel, but is also at the heart of this second phase of Lent — from the 3rd Sunday through the end of the 4th week — when we ponder the meaning of baptism for the Elect preparing for Baptism as well as for all of us who need to grow in living the consequences of our baptism. We can interpret today’s reading in a baptismal key, for this is one of the most commonly chosen readings for the celebration of baptism, since it shows us what the purpose of a Christian life is and how we can keep our end of the baptismal Covenant with the Lord. When asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus responds, “The first is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.’” Today Jesus reminds us that the whole point of the Lenten season, the whole point of the Christian life to which Lent is meant to restore us, is to return with our whole heart in love to God, and not just our heart, but to return to him with our whole soul, mind and strength as well, to receive his merciful love without any obstacles and then to learn how to let that mercy we’ve received become the way which we respond to others.
It’s important that we truly confront what Jesus is asking of us. There are many Christians who believe they love the Lord simply because they have good thoughts about him, they admire him, they think that he’s kind, merciful and generous. But Jesus is calling for much more than this. Love is more than having good feelings or impressions about another; love is the unconquerable benevolence that leads to willing, to choosing consistently, the good of the other for the other’s sake. Love is opting as a habit to sacrifice oneself for another, putting someone else ahead of us, like Jesus would say during the Last Supper and put into action the following afternoon: laying down one’s life for one’s friends, in little ways or supremely. There are many Christians who love God to the point of sacrificing for him, but as today’s Gospel shows us, it’s not enough to sacrifice some of the time and gifts that he’s given us for him and his glory. It’s not enough to give God some of our mind, heart, soul and strength. Jesus is calling us to love God with all we’ve got. Today he says that that’s worth more than all sacrifices. To get to that type of love requires a deep conversion on our part. It means that our hope is not just to be good people but to be really holy people.
We should make this practical. We need to examine how we use our mind to love the Lord, to seek to think as he thinks, to fill our minds with his thoughts through prayer and reading the Bible and good spiritual books. We need to look at whether we love him with all our heart, loving him more than everything and everyone else in our life, including our life. We need to question whether we’re loving him with 100 percent of our strength, overcoming inertia to come to be with him, battling through distractions in prayer, striving to please him every way we can. We need to ask whether we are trying to give him our whole soul through remaining in the state of grace, the state of our baptism, through the gift of the Sacrament of Confession and through not allowing anything unworthy of him to reside in our soul. In the Gospel today, however, Jesus goes a step further than that challenge. He tells us that our love for God will be shown in our love for neighbor. And so we similarly need to ask whether we are striving to love our neighbor with all our mind, thinking about him, trying to understand him and lead him to God; with all our heart, with affection, including and especially those neighbors most difficult to love; with all our strength, sacrificing for them, forgiving them, going the extra mile for them; and with all our soul, seeking to love them together with God and caring in a special way for their souls.
Such total, committed love is the “straight path” that the Lord wants us to take, to quote from the end of today’s first reading from the Prophet Hosea. It’s the path that those who are “just,” who are in a right relationship with God, take. It’s not enough to know what we must do, but Jesus wants us to take that straight path of love. Faith requires more than understanding; it requires action. Jesus says to the scribe in today’s Gospel, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” The scribe was close to it by his understanding, but he was not yet in it. Like him, we need to do more than merely know that we’re called to love God and our neighbor holding nothing back; we actually have to love.
Today we celebrate someone who loved God and neighbor by this standard. St. John of God was born in Portugal in 1495 and at 27 became a soldier in Castile. Like many in the military throughout the centuries, he gave himself over to vice, became thoroughly licentious and left the practice of the faith. Eventually the army was disbanded and he worked as a shepherd. At the age of about 40, stung with remorse for his past sins, he resolved to be healed and to give himself over to God’s service. He tried first as a martyr among the Christian slaves in Morocco, but that plan didn’t work. Then he began to care for the poor and eventually for the sick. He heard a sermon by St. John of Avila and was so affected that he filled the Church with his cries, beating his breast and imploring God’s mercy. St. John of Avila gave him God’s mercy and set him straight. From that point forward, until he would die at 55, he immersed himself in the care for others out of love for God. He founded a hospital and allowed himself to be surrounded by those who would eventually be called the “Brothers Hospitallers.” In a letter he wrote that the Church presents to us in the Office of Readings this morning, he describes how deeds of charity done with faith have eternal consequences. “If we look forward to receiving God’s mercy,” he wrote, “we can never fail to do good so long as we have the strength. For if we share with the poor, out of love for God, whatever he has given to us, we shall receive according to his promise a hundredfold in eternal happiness. What a fine profit, what a blessed reward! Who would not entrust his possessions to this best of merchants, who handles our affairs so well? With outstretched arms he begs us to turn toward him, to weep for our sins, and to become the servants of love, first for ourselves, then for our neighbors. Just as water extinguishes a fire, so love wipes away sin.” He did it in such a Christ-like way that his contemporaries simply called him “John of God.” Today he is interceding for us to learn to love God and others like he did.
The fulfillment of the prayer to be with Christ who seeks to remain with us always until the end of time is here at Mass, where we are best able to grow to love God with all we are and have and love our neighbor with all we are and have. Here at Mass, as we pray in today’s opening prayer, God “pour[s] [his] grace into our hearts, … that we may … obey by [his] own gift the heavenly teaching” he gives us. God the Father gives us his merciful love, he gives us his help, he plants within us Jesus, the Incarnate Love of the Father, so that we may, receiving the Father’s love, incarnate in Jesus, love the Father in communion with Jesus and love others with the very love of Jesus. Today let’s ask Jesus to help us to pray this Mass with all our mind, heart, soul and strength and to be strengthened by Jesus in the Mass to “do this in memory of” him, giving our bodies, our blood, our sweat, our tears, our mind, heart, soul and strength, just like John of God did, in love for others as Jesus has given all he had for us and our salvation.

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1
HOS 14:2-10
Thus says the LORD:
Return, O Israel, to the LORD, your God;
you have collapsed through your guilt.
Take with you words,
and return to the LORD;
Say to him, “Forgive all iniquity,
and receive what is good, that we may render
as offerings the bullocks from our stalls.
Assyria will not save us,
nor shall we have horses to mount;
We shall say no more, ‘Our god,’
to the work of our hands;
for in you the orphan finds compassion.”
I will heal their defection, says the LORD,
I will love them freely;
for my wrath is turned away from them.
I will be like the dew for Israel:
he shall blossom like the lily;
He shall strike root like the Lebanon cedar,
and put forth his shoots.
His splendor shall be like the olive tree
and his fragrance like the Lebanon cedar.
Again they shall dwell in his shade
and raise grain;
They shall blossom like the vine,
and his fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.
Ephraim! What more has he to do with idols?
I have humbled him, but I will prosper him.
“I am like a verdant cypress tree”–
Because of me you bear fruit!
Let him who is wise understand these things;
let him who is prudent know them.
Straight are the paths of the LORD,
in them the just walk,
but sinners stumble in them.
Responsorial Psalm
PS 81:6C-8A, 8BC-9, 10-11AB, 14 AND 17
R. (see 11 and 9a) I am the Lord your God: hear my voice.
An unfamiliar speech I hear:
“I relieved his shoulder of the burden;
his hands were freed from the basket.
In distress you called, and I rescued you.”
R. I am the Lord your God: hear my voice.
“Unseen, I answered you in thunder;
I tested you at the waters of Meribah.
Hear, my people, and I will admonish you;
O Israel, will you not hear me?”
R. I am the Lord your God: hear my voice.
“There shall be no strange god among you
nor shall you worship any alien god.
I, the LORD, am your God
who led you forth from the land of Egypt.”
R. I am the Lord your God: hear my voice.
“If only my people would hear me,
and Israel walk in my ways,
I would feed them with the best of wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would fill them.”
R. I am the Lord your God: hear my voice.
Gospel
MK 12:28-34
One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him,
“Which is the first of all the commandments?”
Jesus replied, “The first is this:
Hear, O Israel!
The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.
The second is this:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these.”
The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher.
You are right in saying,
He is One and there is no other than he.
And to love him with all your heart,
with all your understanding,
with all your strength,
and to love your neighbor as yourself
is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding,
he said to him,
“You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”
And no one dared to ask him any more questions.
The post Walking in the Straight and Loving Paths of the Lord, Friday of the Second Week of Lent, March 8, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
16 min
March 07, 2024Made Stronger By The Stronger Man, Thursday of the Third Week of Lent, March 7, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Thursday of the Third Week of Lent
Memorial of SS. Perpetua and Felicity, Martyrs
750th Anniversary of the Death of St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church
March 7, 2024
Jer 7:23-28, Ps 95, Lk 11:14-23

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
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The following points were attempted in today’s homily:
Yesterday we pondered how great a gift of God’s mercy it is that God has spoken to us in his word and his commandments. Moses exclaimed, “For what great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the Lord, our God, is to us whenever we call upon him? Or what great nation has statutes and decrees that are as just as this whole law that I am setting before you today?” He added that the Israelites should rejoice in that gift of mercy and pass it on to their children and grandchildren as a means by which to grow closer to the God who through his word and commandments has drawn near to us. Jesus himself in the Gospel said he came to fulfill that law and that the greatest in his Kingdom would be those who put that word into practice and taught others to do the same. The fulfillment of the law leads to the fulfillment of human persons.
What did the vast majority of the Israelites do in response to that gift of mercy God had given them? The Lord himself summarizes it through the Prophet Jeremiah at the beginning of today’s first reading: “This is what I commanded my people: Listen to my voice; then I will be your God and you shall be my people. Walk in all the ways that I command you, so that you may prosper. But they obeyed not, nor did they pay heed.” Then he uses four body parts to describe graphically their response. “They turned their backs, not their faces, to me.” This was a sign of betrayal and abandonment. “They have stiffened their necks and done worse than their fathers.” They wouldn’t heed the Lord when he sent the prophets toward them; they would resolutely keep doing what they wanted to do like horses running with blinders. “They walked in the hardness of their evil hearts.” Their hearts, which were meant to be sponges for God’s words, had become sclerotic, impenetrable even to God.
We see an illustration of this type of resistance in the Gospel reading. Jesus had just exorcised a boy, one in a long line of deliverances from the devil, but those Scribes and Pharisees who had already hardened their hearts, stiffened their necks and turned their backs toward Jesus refused to accept that any of the incontestable exorcisms happened by the finger of God. They accused Jesus of working exorcisms by the power of the prince of devils. Their hardened hearts had led to a hardening of the brain. Jesus exposes their foolishness in two ways. First, since they admitted that some of their own number were exorcising, if he cast out by the devil, then they were suggesting that their own number might be exorcising by Beelzebul, too, something of course they would never believe or admit. Second, since the devil is trying to win, not forfeit, the possession our hearts, backs, necks and faces, it would make no sense for him to be defeating himself through exorcism. Their response to Jesus’ liberation of the boy from the devil, however, shows what God was describing about the Israelites and their treatment of the prophets sent in God’s name. They didn’t want to turn back to God. No matter how often they had prayed today’s Responsorial Psalm, “If today you hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts,” that’s precisely what they did when they heard the voice of God through Jeremiah, and it’s precisely what the Scribes and Pharisees did when they heard Jesus’ voice.
Now we turn to us. If we want to prevent what happened to them from happening to us, we need to hearken to the voice of the Lord. Rather than turning our backs toward Him, we need to turn our faces in prayer and in adoration. Rather than hardening our hearts, we need to soften them, by responding to his merciful help to love more and more all that he teaches us, listening to his words as words to be done, and then helping others to receive and live by this same gift of mercy. Rather than stiffening our necks, he wants us to turn our necks with him when he turns to the Father, when he turns to the poor that he wants us to help, when he turns to the others here, when he turns toward our family members that we need to forgive, when he turns toward Sacred Scripture in order to instruct us in his ways. The word “convert” comes from the Latin con-vertere, which means to turn with the Lord, and that’s precisely what God wants to help us to do.
The devil will use anything he can to try to get a foothold in us so that he can begin to divide us from the Lord and others. If he can get us to have a hardened heart to the voice of the Lord in Sacred Scripture each day early in the morning, giving us that hardened soil that convinces us we’ve heard it before and that it really doesn’t have the power to change our life forever, that’s where he’ll start, because he knows that partially hardened hearts leads to hardening of the spiritual arteries, to stiff necks, and to backs turned toward the Lord. If he can harden our hearts by tempting us not to forgive someone else, that’s where he’ll start. Any way that he can seek to divide us, within ourselves, among ourselves, or in our relationship with God through sin or tepidity, he will, seeking to metastasize that spiritual cancer later.
What’s the Good News? Jesus stresses that he is the stronger man who has come to bind the devil and divide his spoils. Jesus’ power to unite is infinitely greater than the devil’s ability to divide. We need to take advantage, however, of all of the means he gives to turn our faces, our hearts, our necks, our bodies and souls to him. The Third and Fourth Weeks of Lent are all centered on the annual catechumenate, preparing not only unbaptized Elect for the saving waters of Baptism but renewing in each of us our baptismal promises and identity. Today’s readings are a powerful reminder to us of what happens in baptism and how we’re supposed to correspond. Early in the baptismal rite, the priest exorcises our hearts, taking the oil of catechumens and anointing our breast over our heart, casting out the devil and preparing us for the infusion of the Holy Spirit. Through his minister, Jesus does for us what he did for those possessed by demons, to soften and prepare our hearts for his presence and prepare us for communion with God and others. The priest prays in the baptismal rite, “Almighty and ever-living God, you sent your only Son in to the world to cast out the power of Satan, spirit of evil, to rescue man from the kingdom of darkness, and bring him into the kingdom of light. We pray for this child: set him free from original sin, make him a temple of your glory, and send your Holy Spirit to dwell with him. We ask this through Christ our Lord.” Later we ratified that exorcism, either vicariously through our parents and godparents for us or with our own voice if we were baptized after we had reached the age of reason, proclaiming that we reject Satan, all his evil works and all his empty promises. Then we professed our faith in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the resurrection of the body and eternal life. We announced that the devil is real but that Jesus is the stronger man who liberates us. We proclaimed that we had turned our faces, hearts, necks and our whole existence in faith toward God. We renew that prayer for deliverance every time we pray the Our Father, begging the Lord to “deliver us from the Evil One.” This is one way we live out the Lenten command heard on Ash Wednesday to turn away from sin and believe the Gospel.
Jesus finishes today’s Gospel by saying, “He who is not with me is against me and he who does not gather with me scatters.” This points to the truth that we cannot be neutral in our life with respect to Jesus and what he’s asking. We’re either actively turning toward him, or we’re turning our back on him and helping others to turn their back on him. Pope Francis said during his first homily as Pope, that we’re either praying to the Lord or praying to the devil. It’s not enough not to do evil. It’s not enough not formally to turn our back on God or give him a gesture of defiance. If we’re not actively turning toward him, if we’re not receiving his word with good soil, then objectively we’re turning against him and scattering. Jesus in another passage in the Gospel said something that on the surface seems contradictory, but isn’t. He said to his apostles, “Those who are not against us are with us.” The two passages have been harmonized by various saints to mean that part of us is with the Lord and part of us is not; part of us is gathering, part of us is scattering. And the whole purpose of Lent is to bring us into total conformity so that we may not be a house divided, but a house totally in communion with God. God wants to help us turn the entirety of our hearts, minds, souls, strength, faces and necks to him and then go out with him gathering others to do the same.
Today the Church gives us the example of three people who turned their hearts, backs, faces and necks toward the Lord. The first are the martyrs the Church celebrates today, SS. Perpetua and Felicity. The account of their martyrdom is one of the great hagiological treasures of the early Church, because Perpetua wrote of their sufferings in detail the day before their death, and eyewitness accounts of their martyrdom immediately spread around the early Church. These accounts were so highly regarded by the early Christians that St. Augustine needed to remind them that they should not be treated during Mass with the same reverence as the readings from Sacred Scriptures. Perpetua was a 21-year-old newlywed and mother of a small child and Felicity was a young married slave pregnant with her first child. They were arrested as catechumens and baptized in prison awaiting execution. They both knew that to profess Christianity was a “crime” punishable by death, but they were undeterred. Perpetua’s father, an old man and a pagan, tried all means imaginable to get his daughter to save her life by saying a prayer and making a small sacrifice to the pagan gods. He first begged her to have mercy on his white hair. As deeply as Perpetua loved her father, Perpetua replied, “I cannot call myself by any other name than what I am — a Christian.” She observed Jesus’ teaching that we must pick up our Cross and follow him, we must become like the grain of wheat and fall to the ground and die, we must “lose” our life in order to save it, we must acknowledge Christ before others and he will acknowledge us before the Heavenly Father. Her father in desperation tried violently to shake her physically, but he wasn’t able to shake her of her fidelity. Finally he brought her much-loved baby boy, saying, “Look upon your son who cannot live after you are gone,” and throwing himself at her feet begged her with tears not to bring such dishonor on their whole family. Perpetua wrote of how much she grieved for her father and family, but entrusted herself to God, whom she knew loved her family even more than she did and would take care of them should she die for love of him. When she was led before the procurator of the province, Hilarian, he tried all the same tactics of the threats of torture, of the pain of her father, of the ruin that would come to her son. But none worked. Upon his query, “Are you a Christian?,” she answered resolutely, “Yes, I am.” She was sentenced to be killed by wild boars, cows, leopards, bears and gladiators in a spectacle for bloodthirsty soldiers, with her face, neck, back, heart and all her body, mind, soul and strength directed to the Lord. Alongside her on the altar of the arena was Felicity. Because she was pregnant when captured, she feared that she might not be able to give the supreme witness of her love for Christ, because in general Romans did not execute women who were pregnant lest they execute a child for the “crime” of the mother. She asked some clandestine Christians, however, to pray for an early childbirth and her prayers were answered. She gave birth to a girl whom two of her fellow Christians adopted. As she was being led into the ampitheater, she was singing triumphal psalms and rejoicing that she had so quickly passed “from the midwife to the gladiator, to wash after the pangs of childbirth in a second baptism.” She was to be baptized in the same baptism of blood for which Jesus once longed and said, “There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!” (Lk 12:50). She was renewing her baptismal commitments as she was heading to the fulfillment of baptism. She was, to quote St. Paul in his letter to the Romans, being baptized into Christ’s death so as to share in his resurrection. The procurator set a savage cow upon Felicity and Perpetua. The cow violently threw Perpetua down on her back, tearing her tunic and disheveling her hair. Perpetua got up and quickly pinned her hair, since letting one’s hair down in the ancient world was a universal sign of mourning. In the meantime, the cow had gone after Felicity and had brutally tossed her on the ground. Perpetua ran over to her and helped her up as the cow ran away. They stood awaiting another attack, but none came. They turned to the crowd and shouted to the Christians among them, as great teachers of the wondrous gift of faith, “Stand fast in the faith and love one another, and do not let our sufferings be a stumbling block to you.” They gave each other the kiss of peace, and since the cow wouldn’t kill them, the gladiators were dispatched to pierce them with a sword and send them to God, where they now behold him forever.
The third saint we mark today is the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, who died 750 years ago today. In the old liturgical calendar, his feast was always today, but since 1970, we’ve celebrated him on January 28, which was the feast of the translation of his relics. St. Thomas was one who always had his mind, face, heart, and who being focused on the Lord and who, through his theological work and particularly the fruit of his prayerful contemplation, has helped the Christian faithful do the same. Today we ask his intercession that we might likewise so focus, especially with regard to the Holy Eucharist.
Today, Jesus wants to help cast out from us whatever is in the grip of the evil one. He wants to cure our hearts, faces, and necks so that they, and our entire body and soul may turn toward the Lord, rejoice in his word and his gifts, and through, with and in Him, gather all people to share the Communion Jesus came into the world to give us. He is the Stronger Man who wants to fill us, just like he did Perpetua, Felicity and Thomas, with his strength in our weakness. As we prepare now to receive him, let us ask him for the grace, like the saints we mark today, to love God with all our hearts, faces, necks, minds, soul and strength! Amen!

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1
JER 7:23-28
Thus says the LORD:
This is what I commanded my people:
Listen to my voice;
then I will be your God and you shall be my people.
Walk in all the ways that I command you,
so that you may prosper.
But they obeyed not, nor did they pay heed.
They walked in the hardness of their evil hearts
and turned their backs, not their faces, to me.
From the day that your fathers left the land of Egypt even to this day,
I have sent you untiringly all my servants the prophets.
Yet they have not obeyed me nor paid heed;
they have stiffened their necks and done worse than their fathers.
When you speak all these words to them,
they will not listen to you either;
when you call to them, they will not answer you.
Say to them:
This is the nation that does not listen
to the voice of the LORD, its God,
or take correction.
Faithfulness has disappeared;
the word itself is banished from their speech.
Responsorial Psalm
PS 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9
R. (8) If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.”
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Gospel
LK 11:14-23
Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute,
and when the demon had gone out,
the mute man spoke and the crowds were amazed.
Some of them said,
“By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons,
he drives out demons.”
Others, to test him, asked him for a sign from heaven.
But he knew their thoughts and said to them,
“Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste
and house will fall against house.
And if Satan is divided against himself,
how will his kingdom stand?
For you say that it is by Beelzebul that I drive out demons.
If I, then, drive out demons by Beelzebul,
by whom do your own people drive them out?
Therefore they will be your judges.
But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons,
then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.
When a strong man fully armed guards his palace,
his possessions are safe.
But when one stronger than he attacks and overcomes him,
he takes away the armor on which he relied
and distributes the spoils.
Whoever is not with me is against me,
and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”
The post Made Stronger By The Stronger Man, Thursday of the Third Week of Lent, March 7, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
17 min
March 06, 2024The Great Gift of God’s Nearness and Instruction, Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent, March 6, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent
March 6, 2024
Deut 4:1.5-9, Ps 147, Mt 5:17-19

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
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The following points were attempted in the homily:
In this second phase of Lent, from the third Sunday through the fourth Friday, we ponder the meaning of Baptism, to help the “elect” prepare for this great Sacrament and to help all the baptized grow to full maturity in response to baptismal graces. And we remember what happened to us on the day of our baptism. The priest, bishop or deacon blessed our ears and said, “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the mute speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his Word and your mouth to proclaim his faith to the praise and glory of God the Father.” God gave us ears fundamentally to hear his Truth and lips fundamentally to proclaim it to others to God’s praise and glory. This phase of Lent is meant to help to prepare the Elect, and help the baptized, to learn how to “live the truth in love” (Eph 4:15). We prayed in today’s Opening Collect, “Grant, we pray, O Lord, that, schooled through Lenten observance and nourished by your word, … we may be devoted to you with all our heart.” Lent is a school in which we learn anew how to be like God, to become holy as God is holy, perfect as he is perfect, and merciful as he is mercy. Lent is a season in which we recognize that God gives us in his mercy that formation. In the Gospel, we see that Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for the crowds and in response to that he taught. St. Mark tells us, “When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things” (Mk 6:34). In his mercy, God teaches us, and Jesus came to astonish and amaze us with his teaching, as he did with his sermons, his parables, his example. He came to to proclaim the Gospel, to give witness to the truth, and to enflesh that truth in such a way that he could say to us, “Follow me!” As we focus in Lent on our almsgiving, we remember that this involves not so much giving material goods but giving God and ourselves together with him. And among the most important ways we do that is through the spiritual works of mercy by which we pay forward the gift of truth we’ve received, “instructing the ignorant,” admonishing the sinner,” and “counseling the doubtful.”
That introduction is a prelude to the importance of what God teaches us about the gift of his instruction in today’s readings. In the first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses exclaims about the care God has given us in his teaching: “For what great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the Lord, our God, is to us whenever we call upon him? Or what great nation has statutes and decrees that are as just as this whole law that I am setting before you today?” God has drawn close to us in his statutes and decrees, which train us in the nitty gritty of life how to love God and others and provide the means for us to remain in a communion of life and love with him and others. Rather than the god of deists who creates the world and then abandons it, the God of Israel showed himself to be concerned about bringing the Israelites into communion in every part of their daily life. And that’s what he did, providing guidance through his teaching. The Responsorial Psalm continues the joy at the privilege of knowing God’s law: “He has proclaimed his word to Jacob, his statutes and his ordinances to Israel. He has not done thus for any other nation; his ordinances he has not made known to them.” Many times we’re tempted to look at the law of the Lord as a burden, but God wants us to look at it as an incredible blessing. It’s a sign of God’s love, God’s nearness, God’s mercy, God’s predilection. He has opened for us the owner’s manual about the human being, the world he created and the way we’re supposed to connect with Him. It’s a great blessing to receive this gift. That’s why it’s essential for us to live in that gift and pass it on to others. Moses commands, “Take care and be earnestly on your guard not to forget the things that your own eyes have seen, nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live, but teach them to your children and to your children’s children.” That’s why Jesus says in the Gospel today that the greatest in his kingdom are those who observe his commandments and teach others to do the same. When we pass on the teaching to the next generations, we are giving them the privilege, with us, to draw close to God, to experience his merciful teaching and to be blessed in manifold ways through it. If we fail to do so, we’re distancing ourselves from that communion with God and from his mercy — and dragging others with us.
Jesus describes for us in today’s Gospel about how he was fulfilling the blessing of the law given to Moses and the Israelites. He said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” How does he fulfill the law? We can mention three ways:
First, by allowing the seeds planted in the Old Covenant to flourish in the New. St. Paul would say that many parts of the Mosaic law were pedagogical starting points, not end points. Jesus would come to fulfill them. He would contrast himself to what Moses taught not by contradicting it but by taking it deeper. Whereas Moses taught the limitation of violence, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” Jesus brought it to fulfillment when he called us to love our enemies, pray for our persecutors, do good to those who hate us, forgive 70 times 7 times. Whereas Moses taught us not to commit adultery in the flesh, Jesus fulfilled it by teaching us not to commit adultery in the heart either. Whereas Moses taught us not to kill, Jesus fulfilled it by teaching us not to hate, not to insult, not to murder people in our thoughts and words. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” None of it would pass away, and all of it would be fulfilled.
That brings us to the second way Jesus brings it to completion, by linking the whole law to its purpose. Later in St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus would say, in response to a lawyer’s question about the greatest commandment of all 613 commands in the Mosaic Law, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Then he added: “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” Everything is meant to help us to love God and love others, something that those who look at the law as a burden don’t grasp. Since Jesus’ kingdom is a kingdom of love, that’s why he would add: “Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.” The greatest in the kingdom loves and teaches others to love. The least is one who doesn’t love and sets a scandalous example for others. And we know that God’s love for us is, and our love for others, must always be merciful.
This leads us to the third way that Jesus seeks to fulfill the law: by enfleshing it and allowing us to enter into communion with the Word-made-flesh as the word, the law, thereby takes on our flesh. God himself entered into the world, precisely so that he could teach us by example and from within how to fulfill the law by following him — and uniting ourselves to him — in fulfilling it. This incarnation is perpetuated in the Eucharist. This is a truth that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote about in a beautiful book of Eucharistic essays called God Is Near Us. He pondered the phrase from Deuteronomy today, “What great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him?” and commented: “This passage from the Old Testament has found its ultimate depth of meaning in the Eucharistic presence of the Lord. But its earlier meaning is not thereby abolished, but merely purified and exalted. … In the chapter of the book of Deuteronomy from which this passage is taken, the marvelous closeness of God is seen above all in the law he has given to Israel through Moses. Through the law he makes himself permanently available, as it were, for the questions of his people. Through the law he can always be spoken with by Israel; she can call on him, and he answers. Through the law he offers Israel the opportunity to build a social and political order that breaks new ground. Through the law he makes Israel wise and shows her the way a man should live, so as to live aright. In the law Israel experiences the close presence of God; he has, as it were, drawn back the veil from the riddles of human life and replied to the obscure questionings of men of all ages: Where do we come from? Where are we going? What must we do? … For man, the will of God is not a foreign force of exterior origin, but the actual orientation of his own being. Thus the revelation of God’s will is the revelation of what our own being truly wishes — it is a gift. So we should learn anew to be grateful that in the word of God the will of God and the meaning of our own existence have been communicated to us. God’s presence in the word and his presence in the Eucharist belong together, inseparably. The eucharistic Lord is himself the living Word. Only if we are living in the sphere of God’s Word can we properly comprehend and properly receive the gift of the Eucharist.”
We Christians all the more are able to say, “What people has a God so near it as the Lord is to us in the holy Eucharist?” We able to say with wonder and gratitude that we have the Lord with us in Eucharistic adoration, that we can come to spend time with him and have him, as Cardinal Ratzinger says, reveal the meaning of our existence to us, that we’re that loved. But our wonder and gratitude should go even further. We’re not only able to draw near to God who through the incarnation has come close to us. We can actually receive him on the inside and enter into a Holy Communion with him. St. John Vianney used to say that if we had been given a thousand wishes by God we should never had asked him to take on our nature, share our life totally, die on the Cross for us, raise from the dead, and give us his own body and blood to consume, but what we would never have dreamed request, he in his loving mercy has in fact done. Not only should we never forget that gift, but we should seek to live always in conformity with it and teach others to do the same!

These were the readings for today’s Mass:
Reading 1
DT 4:1, 5-9
Moses spoke to the people and said:
“Now, Israel, hear the statutes and decrees
which I am teaching you to observe,
that you may live, and may enter in and take possession of the land
which the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.
Therefore, I teach you the statutes and decrees
as the LORD, my God, has commanded me,
that you may observe them in the land you are entering to occupy.
Observe them carefully,
for thus will you give evidence
of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations,
who will hear of all these statutes and say,
‘This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.’
For what great nation is there
that has gods so close to it as the LORD, our God, is to us
whenever we call upon him?
Or what great nation has statutes and decrees
that are as just as this whole law
which I am setting before you today?
“However, take care and be earnestly on your guard
not to forget the things which your own eyes have seen,
nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live,
but teach them to your children and to your children’s children.”
Responsorial Psalm
PS 147:12-13, 15-16, 19-20
R. (12a) Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise your God, O Zion.
For he has strengthened the bars of your gates;
he has blessed your children within you.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
He sends forth his command to the earth;
swiftly runs his word!
He spreads snow like wool;
frost he strews like ashes.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
He has proclaimed his word to Jacob,
his statutes and his ordinances to Israel.
He has not done thus for any other nation;
his ordinances he has not made known to them.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
Gospel
MT 5:17-19
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter
will pass from the law,
until all things have taken place.
Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do so
will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.
But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments
will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”
The post The Great Gift of God’s Nearness and Instruction, Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent, March 6, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
12 min
March 05, 2024How Often We Must Forgive, Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent, March 5, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Tuesday of the Third Week in Lent
March 5, 2024
Dan 3:25.34-43, Ps 25, Mt 18:21-35

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.5.24_Homily_1.mp3

The following points were attempted in the homily:
The point of Lent is to become holy like God is holy, perfect as he is perfect, merciful as he is merciful, loving as he himself has loved us first. Today’s readings are placed in this “second phase” of Lent — from the Third Sunday through Friday of the Fourth Week — precisely to help the Elect preparing for baptism, and all of us who have already entered the Sacred Waters, to know the demands that flow from immersion into God’s mercy. In Baptism we receive God’s incredible gift of mercy and to live in accordance with our baptism means to allow that living well of mercy spring up to overflowing from us. Jesus stressed when he taught us the Our Father that unless we forgive others their debts, neither will our heavenly Father forgive us ours. He won’t withhold forgiveness from us as a punishment, but rather we won’t be able to receive his gift, for unless we have a heart that’s ready to forgive others, our heart will be closed to absorb the gift of his mercy. And so Jesus wants through baptism to take away our stony hearts and replace them with a heart of flesh, a heart that can receive the in-pouring of the Father’s mercy systolically and pump it out diastolically. As we pray today with the Prophet Daniel, “Do not take away your mercy from us” and “deal with us in your kindness and great mercy,” God shows us how never to lose that mercy. As we beseech God in the words of the Psalm, “Remember your mercies, Lord,” and remark that the Lord is “good and upright,” who “shows sinners the way,” the Lord today instructs us in his way by helping us not only to remember his mercies but also never to forget the need to pass that mercy on.
That’s what today’s Gospel is all about. St. Peter asks Jesus, “If my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him?” One of the most difficult aspects of living the Catholic faith is the teaching about loving even our enemies and forgiving those who repeatedly wrong us, hate us and persecute us. When people hurt us, we think it’s magnanimous and generous to give them a second chance. If we forgive them yet again, we think we’re ready for canonization. But Jesus’ standards for us are higher. He wants us to become as merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful — and each of our autobiographies shows clearly that God has given us way more than one or two spiritual chances. The Rabbis taught, based on a misinterpretation of passages of the Prophet Amos, that we needed to forgive three times, to give someone a forth chance. Peter in his question to Jesus multiplied that by two and added one and said, “As many as 7 times?” This would be an astronomically high standard, giving someone an eighth chance, before writing someone off as incorrigible. Jesus replied, however, “No, Seventy Sevens.” Whether that means 70×7 (490) or 70+7 (77) times really doesn’t matter, because seven is a number already with a sense of infinity. It means to forgive without limit. He says Peter must forgive every time a brother or sister wrongs him. And what Jesus says to Peter, he also says to us. Just as God never tires, as Pope Francis says, of forgiving us, and we must never tire of asking for that forgiveness, so we, too, must never tire of extending that forgiveness when someone asks it of us, when someone has wronged us — even and especially those who have really wounded us deeply. We must forgive fathers and mothers who have hurt us when we were younger, brothers and sisters who have betrayed us, friends who have deceived us, priests or nuns who have scandalized us, assailants who have attacked us, and terrorists who have mercilessly killed those closest to us.
Jesus tells us why we must do this by means of the parable he gives us, which I’ve always found among his most powerful. He describes two debtors. The first is brought into the King for owing what our translation says is a “huge amount.” The actual term used by St. Matthew is “10,000 talents.” A talent was equivalent to 6,000 denarii and a denarius was a full day’s wage. That means that the man owed 60,000,000 days worth of work, something that would take him 164,271 years to pay off. His request, after he had fallen prostrate on the ground and begged for time to pay it back, was totally absurd. He would need to live to be 165,000 years old! To monetize his debt in today’s terms in order to better understand it, if he were making $100 a day (or $12.50 an hour), he would have owed $6 billion. But the text tells us that when the King saw the man on the ground begging absurdly for time, his “heart was moved with pity” (literally, he was sick to his stomach, his viscera exploded with compassion, splanchnizomai, the verb that the evangelists use to describe Jesus’ mercy) and he forgave the entire debt. He didn’t even make him pay what he could. He forgave it all. We’re supposed to see in this what God does for us. He forgives our entire debt — 10,000 talents worth — seven, seventy-seven, 490 times and more. His merciful generosity is the most distinctive reality about the world!
But then the Parable describes that the servant who had been forgiven billions, who was a billionaire in merciful love, went off and met a servant who owed him 100 denarii (100 days wages), something that could be paid off in a few months. This second debtor, using the very same words and actions as the first, fell down begging for time to pay it off. The first debtor must have recognized that the phrase and actions being employed reminded him of his own recent condition. But instead of sharing mercy with the second debtor, instead of even just giving time to pay it off, he went up and started to choke him in anger and threw him into prison until his family was able to raise the 100 denarii (in today’s money $10,000 at $100 a day) to pay him back. It was obvious that he hadn’t been transformed by the incredible act of mercy of the King. He had received the King’s debt forgiveness superficially; even on a day on which he had been forgiven billions he couldn’t give another person a few months to pay back the debt he owed. At that point the other servants of the King, seeing the behavior of their colleague, were “saddened” and “disturbed” and they went to the Master, not so much to tattle-tale as to let him know of what was happening in his kingdom, that his standard of mercy was not being shown. He called in the first debtor, called him “wicked” and asked the poignant question: “I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?” Rather than paying the mercy forward, he stifled the flow. And he was sent to prison until she should pay back the last penny, something, because of the size of his debt, was impossible. Because he was unwilling to forgive a small debt, he would be in prison forever; his lack of forgiveness, rather than what he owed, was what got him sent to an unending incarceration.
What’s the relevance for us in Lent and in life?
The first lesson is that we’re either “merciful like the Father” and forgive others their sins against us or we’re “wicked” because we do not extend to our fellow servants the pity that the Lord first showed us. Merciful or wicked. There is no third option. If we’re not merciful to others, we’re not faithful to our baptism and Christian identity.
The second is about the debt we’ve incurred to God because of our sins. It’s unpayable. We owe more to God than the rising U.S. national debt! There’s no way we can ever pay it back. We’re always debtors, not creditors, in the forgiveness department. God the Father did not write off our debt, but sent his Son to pay for the debt with his own body and blood on the Cross. Our sins — even every single venial sin — have incurred an infinite debt that Christ needed to pay. Since we have received his forgiveness in baptism and in the sacrament of reconciliation, we are called to go out likewise and forgive others their much smaller debts to us, because nothing anyone could do to us — even if he or she were to torture us or kill those closest to us — amounts to what we’ve done to the Son of God made man through our sins. This is a very important point for us to get. Very often we can think our sins are light matter, not that big a deal. We can have very little compunction if we say a harsh word, or consent to an impure thought, or fail to help a needy neighbor. But every sin we’ve committed — even being impatient with others — makes us de facto crucifiers of the Son of God, because Jesus had to die to forgive even our least venial sin. This is a hard truth to bear, and I know there will be some people who will think that I must be exaggerating. I’m not. That’s how horrible our sins are. Our sins are not peccadilloes; they led to the torture and execution of Jesus. If we stopped there, it would be hard for us not to feel infinitely miserable. But God loved us so much that he counted it a bargain to send his Son to die in payment of the debts we incurred by our sins. That’s the second lesson from today’s Gospel.
The third is that God’s mercy toward us — which is infinite and everlasting — can be forfeited. In the parable, the Master who had written off the $6 billion debt, revoked it when he saw the one he had forgiven refuse similar mercy to the person who owed him. God makes this point emphatically throughout Sacred Scripture. In the Book of Sirach, God tells us,“Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray. Does anyone harbor anger against another, and expect healing from the Lord? If one has no mercy toward another like himself, can he then seek pardon for his own sins?” In the Office of Readings today, St. Peter Chrysologos made the same point. He wrote, “If you hope for mercy, show mercy. … If you ask for yourself what you deny to others, your asking is a mockery. … Show mercy to others in the same way, with the same generosity, with the same promptness, as you want others to show mercy to you.” In today’s Gospel, Jesus vigorously made the same point: “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you” — treat us like the first debtor in the parable — “unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” And none of us should miss the eternal consequence if God revokes or we forfeit his forgiveness. We’ll go to Hell, where there will never be enough time to pay our debt — since unless God forgives us our sins, our sins will prevent us from getting to Heaven. We can add, however, that if we fail to forgive others, we will not have to wait until we die to go to Hell, because we’ll already be experiencing a type of hell on earth. The past pains due to others’ sins against us will always remain in the present, raw and heavy, dragging us down by their weight. Jesus gives us the command to forgive others not just so that we might imitate his merciful love, and not even so that we won’t revoke it by our failure to be merciful to others, but so that we might experience the liberation and joy mercy brings the giver. Framed positively, this third lesson that Jesus is teaching us in this parable is that we need to pay his mercy forward. We have been made rich in mercy by God’s generosity and we’re called to share it. It’s like God has made us billionaires and he wants us liberally to share that gift with those who owe us because of the debts of their sins toward us.
In calling us to forgive in this way, Jesus was himself calling us to follow his command to “love others as I have loved you,” and his love for us is always merciful. Therefore, our love for others must likewise always be clement. As he was dying to pay the debt for our sins, after his back had been shredded at the flagellation, after his head had been crowned with thorns, and the Roman soldiers were about to hammer his arms to the wood of the Cross, Jesus cried out not in pain but in mercy: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do!” (Lk 23:34). The “them” and the “they” he was referring to were not just the Roman soldiers who clearly knew how to crucify someone, but to all of us who when we sin really do not have a clue about how they crucify and kill our Savior. There is a similar consequential ignorance when we sin against others and others sin against us. Today Jesus is asking us to make his words our own, to make his love our own, to make his mercy our own — by our receiving it from him in the Sacrament of Mercy and by our sharing that forgiveness lavishly, with others. He who is mercy incarnate has made us rich in mercy like his Father. He’s restored to us billions that we’ve squandered. And he wants us to spend that merciful love down to the last penny!
Today at this Mass we pray this Mass open to receive and share the continuous living water of God’s merciful love that first welled up in us on the day of our baptism. Here Jesus gives us his body and his blood, given and poured out for the forgiveness of sins. We start Mass by calling to mind our sins and throwing ourselves on his mercy, so that as we leave this Church we can lavishly spend it. We cry out Kyrie, eleison. We invoke him as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. We proclaim that we’re not worthy to receive him but we beg him only to say the word and forgive our debts so that he may enter under our roof. And with Jesus inside us, with Mercy Incarnate abiding in us, how can we not forgive others like he forgives us? There’s a beautiful silent prayer that the priest says at the altar that describes what our whole approach should be to the Mass. The priest says it after offering the chalice, right before his hands are washed. It’s derived from today’s first reading from the Book of Daniel. “In spiritu humilitatis, et in animo contrito suscipiamur a te, Domine: et sic fiat sacrificum nostrum in conspectu tuo hodie, ut placeat tibi, Domine Deus.” “But with contrite heart and humble spirit let us be received [by you, Lord]; so let our sacrifice be in your presence today,” that it may be pleasing to you, Lord God. We present ourselves with a humility and contrition so that God the Father can transform us by his mercy to become his mercy. Let’s present ourselves that way today because the Lord does remember his mercy and wants to help us never to forget it and to help others come to know it!

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 DN 3:25, 34-43
Azariah stood up in the fire and prayed aloud:
“For your name’s sake, O Lord, do not deliver us up forever,
or make void your covenant.
Do not take away your mercy from us,
for the sake of Abraham, your beloved,
Isaac your servant, and Israel your holy one,
To whom you promised to multiply their offspring
like the stars of heaven,
or the sand on the shore of the sea.
For we are reduced, O Lord, beyond any other nation,
brought low everywhere in the world this day
because of our sins.
We have in our day no prince, prophet, or leader,
no burnt offering, sacrifice, oblation, or incense,
no place to offer first fruits, to find favor with you.
But with contrite heart and humble spirit
let us be received;
As though it were burnt offerings of rams and bullocks,
or thousands of fat lambs,
So let our sacrifice be in your presence today
as we follow you unreservedly;
for those who trust in you cannot be put to shame.
And now we follow you with our whole heart,
we fear you and we pray to you.
Do not let us be put to shame,
but deal with us in your kindness and great mercy.
Deliver us by your wonders,
and bring glory to your name, O Lord.”
Responsorial Psalm PS 25:4-5AB, 6 AND 7BC, 8-9
R. (6a) Remember your mercies, O Lord.
Your ways, O LORD, make known to me;
teach me your paths,
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my savior.
R. Remember your mercies, O Lord.
Remember that your compassion, O LORD,
and your kindness are from of old.
In your kindness remember me,
because of your goodness, O LORD.
R. Remember your mercies, O Lord.
Good and upright is the LORD;
thus he shows sinners the way.
He guides the humble to justice,
he teaches the humble his way.
R. Remember your mercies, O Lord.
Verse Before The Gospel JL 2:12-13
Even now, says the LORD,
return to me with your whole heart;
for I am gracious and merciful.
Gospel MT 18:21-35
Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive him?
As many as seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.
That is why the Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who decided to settle accounts with his servants.
When he began the accounting,
a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount.
Since he had no way of paying it back,
his master ordered him to be sold,
along with his wife, his children, and all his property,
in payment of the debt.
At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said,
‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’
Moved with compassion the master of that servant
let him go and forgave him the loan.
When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants
who owed him a much smaller amount.
He seized him and started to choke him, demanding,
‘Pay back what you owe.’
Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him,
‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
But he refused.
Instead, he had him put in prison
until he paid back the debt.
Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened,
they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master
and reported the whole affair.
His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant!
I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.
Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant,
as I had pity on you?’
Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers
until he should pay back the whole debt.
So will my heavenly Father do to you,
unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”
The post How Often We Must Forgive, Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent, March 5, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
18 min

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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.