Catholic Preaching

By Father Roger LandryReligion & Spirituality Christianity

Catholic Preaching episodes

January 12, 2024Letting God Heal and Reign, First Friday (II), January 12, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Friday of the First Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Memorial of St. Marguerite Bourgeoys
January 12, 2024
1 Sam 8:4-7.10-22, Ps 89, Mk 2:1-12

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.12.24_Homily_1.mp3

The following points were attempted in today’s homily:
Throughout this first week of Ordinary Time, we have been focusing on the beginnings of Jesus’ public ministry, his teaching, preaching the reality of the kingdom, healing, exorcising, praying, and summoning and forming the disciples. Pope Francis repeatedly says that everything Jesus did — preaching, teaching healing — was an expression of his fundamental plan of mercy, the reconciliation of the human race with God. Today in the Gospel we get to the summit of that plan. When a paralyzed man was delicately and dangerously lifted onto a roof and lowered into his midst in a home where Jesus was teaching, the first thing Jesus did was to heal his sins. The physical healing, which was important but less important than the healing of the soul, came later.
There are several lessons we can draw from this scene. First, we see how important the forgiveness of sins is to Jesus. It’s his priority. Heaven rejoices more for one repentant sinner than for 99 who didn’t need to repent, as Jesus would later say. The second lesson is the importance of bringing friends to Jesus so that he can give them his merciful love like the friends of the paralytic brought their pal to Jesus. The third lesson is about letting others carry us to Jesus in his mercy if we’re not going. We can think of the Blessed Mother praying for us, the saints praying for us, the contemplatives across the world praying for us.
What are the sins that paralyze us most? We learn the answer from today’s first reading: it’s a general desire not to allow God to reign in our life. It’s not just disobedience, but not wanting God to reign. It’s not really wanting to be like God, to live in his image. We see both in the attitude of the Israelites in today’s first reading who were asking for a king so that they could be like “other nations.” Samuel had ruled them as judge for many years, not only guiding them according to God’s wisdom and indications but helping them to triumph in battle against the Philistines. As he aged, he placed his two sons Joel and Abijah as judges ruling over them from Beersheba, but, as the sacred author tells us, they “did not follow his example, but looked to their own gain, accepting bribes and perverting justice.” So they asked Samuel: “Now that you are old, and your sons do not follow your example, appoint a king over us, as other nations have, to judge us.” Through Samuel, God told them in no uncertain terms what the cost would be, that such kings would take their sons and daughters, their best fields, vineyards, olive groves, their male and female servants, their best animals, their flocks and eventually their liberty, but they were blinded by their unholy stubborn desire to be like other nations who did not follow the Lord. This wasn’t the first time such a request was made. Jotham had warned the people of Shechem during the time of the Judges (Judges 9) that if they allowed Abimelech to be their king, they were choosing a buckthorn, who would devour them. But they consented anyway. It’s unbelievable sometimes how we fail to convert even when we see the negative consequences of our choices, whether retrospectively or in the case of today’s Gospel ahead of time, by sage and inspired advice. Our desire to be like others can be stronger than our desire to be like God. This temptation is one of the great tricks of the evil one and we fall for it over and again. (It’s important to note that God doesn’t condemn civil leadership. Jesus refused to be a political Messiah and he himself said that it was lawful to give to Caesar. But he stressed we first need to give to God. We need to obey him above men. We need to desire that his kingdom come and his will be done. When we fail to do that, that’s when, to some degree, all Hell can break loose.
One saint who sought to help generations of sisters and students learn how to become like God, to receive his mercy, to allow him to reign, and in that to be formed as good citizens, was St. Marguerite Bourgeoys (1620-1700), who is basically one of the founders of the city of Montreal. She lost both her parents when she was young, but they had passed onto her the gift of their faith in God and sought to help that faith grow. When she was 21, she attended a procession of Our Lady of the Rosary and the statue of Mary looked at her in such a way that it changed the trajectory of her life. She had a great desire to bring Jesus to others and others to him. She entered the confraternity of the Sisters of Notre Dame in her town of Troyes, France. They were cloistered sisters who had a school inside the convent, but they knew that they needed uncloistered women to go to teach those who would never approach the convent school, and that’s what the Confraternity did. Eventually the brother of one of the sisters came back from Ville Marie in Quebec, what would eventually expand to become Montreal, and he, the civil leader of Ville Marie, described the need for women to come and teach especially the girls and women who were sent there as orphans to have families in the new world (a practice that a few centuries later is hard to understand). She took up the charge to go far away from home to bring others to Christ the King and help them learn how to live as sons and daughters of the Father who would not leave them orphans. Eventually the Bishop of Quebec, St. François de Laval, allowed her to found an order called in time the Soeurs de Notre Dame de Montreal. He wanted them to become cloistered, too, since he didn’t think it was fitting for women to go out to teach where so many men would be able to hurt them. But she insisted that the Blessed Virgin wasn’t cloistered but constantly brought Jesus out. She wanted to go wherever there were children who needed to be taught about him and bring them to him like the friends of the paralytic, so that they might receive his mercy, his word, his body and blood. She got her way. And the Church grew quickly in Montreal because of her efforts and Montreal became a great powerhouse of faith where God reigned.
We are here because we want God to reign. And God wants to strengthen us for conscientious self-governance, for genuine freedom, which can only be had in alignment with the truth. There’s a beautiful part of today’s Gospel that doesn’t get much attention. It’s what Jesus said to the paralyzed man when he healed his paralysis. He first said, “Rise,” or “Get up,” a prophecy of what he seeks to do to all of us by his Resurrection. The second is, “Pick up your mat.” The man no longer needed to be carried. He was going to be able to carry his own mat. In fact, he wasn’t going to need the mat for himself any longer, but he could now use it for charity, giving it to others, or perhaps even better, to carry them. Jesus wants to strengthen each of us to do our own part as well, to restore us to strength. The third imperative was to “go home,” to start living this new reality in all our familiar surroundings, letting our relationship with the Lord, who mercifully saves us, reign. Today as Jesus comes with his mercy to meet us here in this, his house, he wants to raise us up through the gift of his word, his mercy, and his Body and Blood, so that we might live a new life like a person just cured of paralysis and, with zeal and generosity, go out to others — our friends, our family, young people who are often like spiritual orphans — and seek to bring them to Jesus with us.

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 1 SM 8:4-7, 10-22A
All the elders of Israel came in a body to Samuel at Ramah
and said to him, “Now that you are old,
and your sons do not follow your example,
appoint a king over us, as other nations have, to judge us.”
Samuel was displeased when they asked for a king to judge them.
He prayed to the LORD, however, who said in answer:
“Grant the people’s every request.
It is not you they reject, they are rejecting me as their king.”
Samuel delivered the message of the LORD in full
to those who were asking him for a king.
He told them:
“The rights of the king who will rule you will be as follows:
He will take your sons and assign them to his chariots and horses,
and they will run before his chariot.
He will also appoint from among them his commanders of groups
of a thousand and of a hundred soldiers.
He will set them to do his plowing and his harvesting,
and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots.
He will use your daughters as ointment makers, as cooks, and as bakers.
He will take the best of your fields, vineyards, and olive groves,
and give them to his officials.
He will tithe your crops and your vineyards,
and give the revenue to his eunuchs and his slaves.
He will take your male and female servants,
as well as your best oxen and your asses,
and use them to do his work.
He will tithe your flocks and you yourselves will become his slaves.
When this takes place,
you will complain against the king whom you have chosen,
but on that day the LORD will not answer you.”
The people, however, refused to listen to Samuel’s warning and said,
“Not so! There must be a king over us.
We too must be like other nations,
with a king to rule us and to lead us in warfare
and fight our battles.”
When Samuel had listened to all the people had to say,
he repeated it to the LORD, who then said to him,
“Grant their request and appoint a king to rule them.”
Responsorial Psalm PS 89:16-17, 18-19
R. (2) For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
Blessed the people who know the joyful shout;
in the light of your countenance, O LORD, they walk.
At your name they rejoice all the day,
and through your justice they are exalted.
R. For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
For you are the splendor of their strength,
and by your favor our horn is exalted.
For to the LORD belongs our shield,
and to the Holy One of Israel, our King.
R. For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
Alleluia LK 7:16
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
A great prophet has arisen in our midst
and God has visited his people.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel MK 2:1-12
When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days,
it became known that he was at home.
Many gathered together so that there was no longer room for them,
not even around the door,
and he preached the word to them.
They came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.
Unable to get near Jesus because of the crowd,
they opened up the roof above him.
After they had broken through,
they let down the mat on which the paralytic was lying.
When Jesus saw their faith, he said to him,
“Child, your sins are forgiven.”
Now some of the scribes were sitting there asking themselves,
“Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming.
Who but God alone can forgive sins?”
Jesus immediately knew in his mind what
they were thinking to themselves,
so he said, “Why are you thinking such things in your hearts?
Which is easier, to say to the paralytic,
‘Your sins are forgiven,’
or to say, ‘Rise, pick up your mat and walk’?
But that you may know
that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth”
–he said to the paralytic,
“I say to you, rise, pick up your mat, and go home.”
He rose, picked up his mat at once,
and went away in the sight of everyone.
They were all astounded
and glorified God, saying,
“We have never seen anything like this.”
The post Letting God Heal and Reign, First Friday (II), January 12, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
18 min
January 11, 2024Obeying with Love Rather Than Manipulating the Lord, First Thursday (II), January 11, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Thursday of the First Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
January 11, 2024
1 Sam 4:1-11, Ps 44, Mk 1:40-45

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.11.24_Homily_1.mp3

The following points were attempted in the homily:
One of the great dangers in living the faith is the temptation to manipulate God for our own ends. This temptation obviously can affect those with no or very little faith: “If you really exist, God, then show it by working this miracle I ask of you.” But it can also affect those who have faith, who are very familiar with God. Egocentrism can invade our relationship and rather than truly worshipping God, seeking his will, his kingdom, his glory — and seeking them as our great priorities — we seek our own will, kingdom and glory, and seek God’s really only to the extent that it doesn’t get in the way of our own or seemingly advances our own. It’s important for us always to examine the rectitude of our intention when it comes to God and, as a litmus test, to examine whether we’re actually seeking his will in action with a pure heart. Today’s readings help us to examine this reality in depth.
In today’s first reading, the Israelites, who were not being faithful to God, were fighting against the Philistines. The Israelites had suffered a defeat but then immediately said, “Let us fetch the ark of the Lord from Shiloh, that it may go into battle among us and save us from the grasp of our enemies.” They wanted to use the Ark of Covenant as a magical object to bring them earthly victory. They essentially wanted to use God for their ends, rather than stopping with reverence to ask what were God’s ends. And when they came to the Temple to “fetch” the Ark, Phinehas and Hophni, the two sons of Eli, just let them take it. They were supposed to be guardians of the Ark, but we know that their presence in the Temple of Shiloh, their proximity to this great reminder and instantiation of God’s saving power in the history of the people of Israel, hadn’t transformed them for the better. They were corrupt: sexually abusing women who had come to adore at the temple and seeking to profit financially from people’s desire to serve God. And so priests and people — in short, almost everyone — were just trying to use God for their own purposes rather than seeking and doing his will. God allowed the Philistines to triumph, we can say, at his own expense, out of a merciful justice meant to bring the Israelites to conversion, rather than allow them to persevere in such manipulation. Since the Israelites had brought the Ark into battle, “God” himself was being defeated as 30,000 Israelites were slain and the ark was stolen. But just like on Good Friday, God permitted it in order ultimately to convert and save.
In the Responsorial Psalm we see the first step of their Redemption, but the prayer still oozes with spiritual subjectivism, with a focus on themselves rather than God. Rather than being crestfallen at how they have dishonored God and sullied his name among the peoples, they were concerned principally about their own: “Now you have cast us off and put us in disgrace, and you go not forth with our armies. You have let us be driven back by our foes; those who hated us plundered us at will. You made us the reproach of our neighbors, the mockery and the scorn of those around us. You made us a byword among the nations, a laughingstock among the peoples. Why do you hide your face, forgetting our woe and our oppression?” They were trying to guilt trip God to act, when it was their own sins that had divided them from the Lord. They wanted him to do their will without their doing his. God permitted their disgrace, their being plundered, their suffering reproach, scorn and mockery, precisely to bring them to conversion, precisely out of a strong mercy. And he accepted their “imperfect contrition” — their sorrow not out of love for him, but out of hatred for the punishment their sins had brought upon them — and over and again mercifully redeemed them.
We can see another instance of manipulation of God in the Gospel. The most physically disgusting and repulsive human being imaginable came up to Jesus, knelt down and begged Jesus to cure him. Lepers, as you know, have a bacterial infection that eats away at their flesh and gives them a sickening odor. At the time of Jesus, leprosy was considered so contagious that those with it were quarantined for life apart from the rest of the community. They had no one with whom to associate or to care for them — except other lepers. They were cut off from their family, from their jobs, from the synagogue and from the temple. They were outcasts, ostracized from all things human, from basic love and mercy. They had to wear ripped clothes and keep their hair messy so that others would be able to spot them more easily. Whenever they needed to travel to obtain something, they were mandated by Mosaic law to shout out “Unclean!” “Unclean!” They were forbidden to come within a certain distance of others. Anyone who touched a leper became, in Jewish mentality, unclean. That the man in today’s Gospel broke all convention to come close to Jesus was already a sign of his desperation. What was Jesus’ reaction to this miserable, physically nauseating man on his knees before him? Most of those around Jesus likely ran away from him lest they catch the contagion. Jesus moved in the opposite direction. He stretched out his hand and touched the leper. We can almost hear the shrieks of onlookers two thousand years later. It was probably the first time a non-leper had touched him in years. Then Jesus said the words that were the answer to the man’s prolonged prayers: “Be made clean!” After the leprosy miraculously left him, Jesus gave him instructions to go see the priest and go through the rites of the Mosaic law for testimony of a cure of leprosy so that he, so long an outcast, could return to the human community. This is a classic expression of the Lord’s soft and tender mercy, something the leper was desperately grateful to receive.
But that’s where the leper’s faith that had brought him to Jesus in the first place ended. Once he got what he wanted, he started to do his own thing, rather than what God was calling him to do. St. Mark tells us that Jesus “warning him sternly,” instructed him, “See that you tell no one anything.” Jesus well knew that if news of the miracle became widespread, everyone would be coming to him first as a free medical doctor and secondly as the long-awaited Messiah whom they would interpret in political terms, as someone who would boot the Romans and reinstitute a Davidic temporal kingdom. Jesus wanted to avoid those misconceptions because he had come not as a new political candidate or as a new Hippocrates but as a Savior. The former leper’s response to Jesus’ stern warning not to tell anyone anything, was, however, to ignore it totally. St. Mark says, “The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter. He spread the report abroad so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in deserted places, and people kept coming to him from everywhere,” exactly validating Jesus’ concerns that underlined his warning and command. Jesus suffered as a result of his goodness to the man. While the man was cured of the leprosy of his skin and body parts, he wasn’t cured of the leprosy of a partially hardened heart. When he heard the voice of the Lord telling him not to do something, he simply ignored it and did what he wanted to do. He likely thought he had justification for doing so: after all, Jesus had given him the greatest gift of his life and what would it hurt, he probably asked himself, publicly to praise him for it? But the simple fact is that he responded to the Lord’s command with disobedience. He had gotten what he wanted from the Lord and then he was just going to do what he wanted from that point forward, instead of what the Lord had sternly commanded. To a degree like the Israelites, he had been in the presence of the Lord, he had heard the Lord’s words, he had received his liberating actions, but none of that had transformed him to want what God wants. He had used the Lord for his own advantage, but then he went off as if he were in charge, rather than a grateful follower of the one he called, “Lord.”
The leprosy of a partially hardened heart — a heart that manipulates God for his or her own ends, who hears the Lord’s voice but responds selectively, according to one’s own desires, needs, and categories — can affect anyone, including us. We may listen attentively and put into practice Jesus’ words about praying always, but harden our heart to his words about confessing our sins to those whom he has sent with the power to forgive and retain sins in his name. We may seek to enflesh his words about crossing the road to help someone in need when we feel like it, but harden our hearts to Jesus’ word about welcoming strangers as we would welcome him when we don’t feel like it. We may faithfully keep the commandment to honor our parents but violate his command to forgive our siblings who have wronged us. We may faithfully heed his word about the Mass, to eat his flesh and drink his blood, but totally ignore his commission to go to every creature we know and proclaim the Gospel. We may follow him with a good heart when he asks us to love one person but then harden it totally toward loving someone else whom we don’t like. Part of our heart is open and docile and part of it is full of stone. Part of us listens to the Lord and part of us ignores him and does our own thing: whether our heart is opened to the Lord or hardened depends on what the voice of the Lord says to us. If God speaks to us a word we want to hear, then often we’ll do it; but if the Lord challenges us to do something we don’t want to do, often we’ll ignore God’s voice and listen to our own. And many times, just like the leper in the Gospel, we’ll feel justified in doing so because we think we’re doing something good with a good motivation, while in fact we’re hardening our hearts to the Lord’s voice. The real test is how we respond when God asks us to do something that goes against the grain for us. Do we hear his voice and do it? Do we receive his commands as the merciful imperatives they are, or do we only receive the mercy we think we need and close ourselves off to the other expressions of that divine love?
To the extent that we have been guilty of manipulating God, or to the extent that we’re aware of the temptation to do so, today we come to the Lord to ask him to make us clean. And we know that here at Mass we have something far greater than the Israelites had in the Temple of Shiloh. We have God really present and not just various symbols of his presence. God wants to make us his Temple and come and abide with us. He wants to make us clean and keep us clean. He wants to fill us with his mercy according to his omniscient determination as to how we need it. Today we ask him for the grace to hear his voice and do it, to say and mean, “Thy will be done!” and then act on his command to us at the end of today’s Mass. He won’t tell us, like he told the former leper, not to tell anyone anything. He’ll tell us, rather, “Go to the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature!” He’ll tell us, “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord!” May we, having been healed by God, and having received Him within during Holy Communion, not spend the rest of our day doing our own thing, but zealously telling everybody about the true God and the miracles he mercifully continues to do for us because of his mercy.

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 1 SM 4:1-11
The Philistines gathered for an attack on Israel.
Israel went out to engage them in battle and camped at Ebenezer,
while the Philistines camped at Aphek.
The Philistines then drew up in battle formation against Israel.
After a fierce struggle Israel was defeated by the Philistines,
who slew about four thousand men on the battlefield.
When the troops retired to the camp, the elders of Israel said,
“Why has the LORD permitted us to be defeated today
by the Philistines?
Let us fetch the ark of the LORD from Shiloh
that it may go into battle among us
and save us from the grasp of our enemies.”
So the people sent to Shiloh and brought from there
the ark of the LORD of hosts, who is enthroned upon the cherubim.
The two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were with the ark of God.
When the ark of the LORD arrived in the camp,
all Israel shouted so loudly that the earth resounded.
The Philistines, hearing the noise of shouting, asked,
“What can this loud shouting in the camp of the Hebrews mean?”
On learning that the ark of the LORD had come into the camp,
the Philistines were frightened.
They said, “Gods have come to their camp.”
They said also, “Woe to us! This has never happened before. Woe to us!
Who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods?
These are the gods that struck the Egyptians
with various plagues and with pestilence.
Take courage and be manly, Philistines;
otherwise you will become slaves to the Hebrews,
as they were your slaves.
So fight manfully!”
The Philistines fought and Israel was defeated;
every man fled to his own tent.
It was a disastrous defeat,
in which Israel lost thirty thousand foot soldiers.
The ark of God was captured,
and Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were among the dead.
Responsorial Psalm PS 44:10-11, 14-15, 24-25
R. (27b) Redeem us, Lord, because of your mercy.
Yet now you have cast us off and put us in disgrace,
and you go not forth with our armies.
You have let us be driven back by our foes;
those who hated us plundered us at will.
R. Redeem us, Lord, because of your mercy.
You made us the reproach of our neighbors,
the mockery and the scorn of those around us.
You made us a byword among the nations,
a laughingstock among the peoples.
R. Redeem us, Lord, because of your mercy.
Why do you hide your face,
forgetting our woe and our oppression?
For our souls are bowed down to the dust,
our bodies are pressed to the earth.
R. Redeem us, Lord, because of your mercy.
Alleluia SEE MT 4:23
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Jesus preached the Gospel of the Kingdom
and cured every disease among the people.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel MK 1:40-45
A leper came to him and kneeling down begged him and said,
“If you wish, you can make me clean.”
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand,
touched the leper, and said to him,
“I do will it. Be made clean.”
The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.
Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once.
Then he said to him, “See that you tell no one anything,
but go, show yourself to the priest
and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed;
that will be proof for them.”
The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter.
He spread the report abroad
so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.
He remained outside in deserted places,
and people kept coming to him from everywhere.
The post Obeying with Love Rather Than Manipulating the Lord, First Thursday (II), January 11, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
15 min
January 10, 2024Listening to the Lord in Prayer Even At Night, First Monday (II), January 10, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Wednesday of the First Week of Ordinary Time, Year II
January 10, 2024
1 Sam 3:1-10.19-20, Ps 40, Mk 1:29-39

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.10.24_Homily_1.mp3

The following points were attempted in today’s homily:
At the beginning of Ordinary Time, the Church has us ponder the beginning of St. Mark’s Gospel that helps us learn how to live in the kingdom of God in every time. St. Mark’s Gospel begins with the encounter of Jesus and how he calls us to repent, believe, follow him and fish for others to follow him. It helps us to learn how we should be astonished and amazed by the encounter with Jesus, to hang on his words, and to obey them. Today we continue to enter into the beginnings of the public ministry of Jesus and get a glimpse at an ordinary day in his life and how he was filling his full days preaching, healing, praying and sharing himself with others. The way Jesus behaved in Capernaum shows his perennial priorities.
Jesus began this day in the Gospel by preaching for a long time in the synagogue on the Sabbath, which must have been somewhat exhausting all-day work since people would return home normally only at sunset. Then he went to Simon’s house where he healed Simon’s mother-in-law. Soon after that, the whole town was at the door asking for miracles, and Jesus, per his custom, would work with every sick person one-on-one, bringing people into a personal relationship with him so that he could give them an even greater gift, salvation through faith. After that, well before dawn in the next day, he went out to pray. Finally, when the apostles found him and said that everyone was looking for him, rather than rejoice in what might be deemed “success,” he mentioned that they needed to be on their way, because he wanted to preach the Gospel in surrounding towns as well. “For this reason I was sent,” he said. Such was his passion to spread the faith that he wasn’t just looking for a few to receive him, but for all. He carried out four activities: preaching, healing, praying and zealously bringing the truth to others. These show what he wants to do for us and also how he wants to transform us to be his instruments in doing this for others.
I’d like to ponder more extensively Jesus’ prayer in the middle of the night. Even though he was exhausted, he still went out to pray. That was how much he desired that communion with the Father. There’s something particularly special about prayer at night, prayer, we can say, that triumphs over the body’s desire for sleep, because it really tests and strengthens the will to choose God over one’s appetites. Jesus was regularly praying at night not only because he was mobbed during the day but because that’s a time in which the distractions of the day are fewer and we can sense the light of God shining in the midst of the nocturnal darkness. This is likewise one of the reasons why adorers who take the “graveyard shift” speak about how special it is. It’s one of the reasons why monks and nuns for centuries in cloisters have arisen to pray matins at about 3 am. It’s a reason why Midnight Mass is so important and special. There’s something special about prioritizing God in the middle of night, about getting up before dawn to express our desire for God before the sun that symbolizes God rises. In the book In Sinu Iesu, Jesus intimates in prayer to the priest author, “There are particular graces reserved for souls who keep watch before my Eucharistic Face during the night. Those who pray by night imitate My own night watches of prayer to my Father. How often I would keep vigil in the presence of my Father, conversing with Him in the silence of the night and taking up into my prayer the secret cares of a sleeping world and even the groans of creation. You will discover that there is a clarity and a peace in nocturnal prayer that I do not give to souls at other times. … Learn to adore me by night. … I prayed to my Father in this way and in so doing I gave my priests and all my friends an example to follow.”
This lesson about prayer at night is similarly communicated catechetically, we could say, in today’s first reading. God called young Samuel to prayer not in the middle of the day but while he was sleeping. We know that after Samuel’s birth, Hannah presented him in the temple and left him there to learn how to serve the Lord. And he would sleep in the temple close to the Ark of the Covenant. The text tells us that at the time “a revelation of the Lord was uncommon and vision infrequent,” something that implies that by the time the Book of Samuel was writing, revelations had become common and visions of God frequent, a change that is meant to continue into our present as God reveals himself to us and allows us to see his will in prayer each day. God calls out to Samuel in the middle of the night by name, but Eli, who had been corrupted over time and allowed his family to become corrupt, was slow to pick up on what was happening, and didn’t want to be interrupted in the middle of his sleep. Sleep is a basically an image of someone who is not alert to God and his voice, Eli probably seldom or never prayed to the Lord at night and, normally deaf to God’s voice, didn’t recognize that the Lord might be speaking to Samuel. Eventually, however, he caught on and gave Samuel good advice, to see to the one calling, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” And that’s precisely what Samuel did. In Samuel’s prayer, we learn a lot. Often we can think about prayer as our work — the vocal prayers we say, the meditations we choose and do — but prayer is first and fundamentally about opening ourselves up to what the Lord wants to give us in his mercy. It’s more about God’s word than our words, his action than our action. The ultimate purpose of prayer is not an exchange of words or ideas but an exchange of persons, and God in grace makes the first move. That’s why we must begin with an attentiveness to his voice, to his presence, to his self-giving. This type of receptive prayer is essential. The text tells us, “At that time Samuel was not familiar with the Lord,” a sign that those with whom he was living, Eli and his corrupt sons, were not really prayerful men. Even though Samuel was raised from his earliest days in the Temple, even though we presume he had learned to recite the Psalms and the Torah, even though he was a “minister to the Lord” already, he was “not familiar with the Lord,” he didn’t know God as a Father, he didn’t see himself as a member of God’s family, he didn’t have a personal relationship with him. That type of personal relationship happens through prayer, the one-on-one dialogue we have with God. God wants us all to be familiar with him in this way through this existential dialogue of prayer. And God mercifully will give himself to us in that way, in the middle of the night when we can perceive him more clearly, so that we can also see more clearly how he’s giving himself to us in the middle of the day. God wants to give us the same gift he gave Samuel, to “wake us up” to his presence in the middle of our nocturnal, diurnal or existential sleepiness, so that just as “Samuel grew up, and the Lord was with him, not permitting any word of his to be without effect” and he was known “from Dan to Beersheba … [as] an accredited prophet of the Lord,” so we, too, will continue to grow conscious that the Lord is with us and allow the word he implants with us to bear 30-, 60- or 100-fold fruit, making it possible for us to announce the Lord to others by who we are even before we open our mouths.
The same Lord who spoke to Samuel, the same Jesus who teaches, heals and prays, has called us to this encounter. He teaches us in Sacred Scripture. He heals us from the inside by what St. Ignatius of Antioch called “the medicine of immortality” (the Eucharist) and he prays for us, so that, so healed and strengthened by him, we may use our health, like Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, to serve God and others as we go to other people and even towns as well, because it’s to spread that faith in action that Christ has called us and for which we, like Christ, have been sent!

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 1 SM 3:1-10, 19-20
During the time young Samuel was minister to the LORD under Eli,
a revelation of the LORD was uncommon and vision infrequent.
One day Eli was asleep in his usual place.
His eyes had lately grown so weak that he could not see.
The lamp of God was not yet extinguished,
and Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the LORD
where the ark of God was.
The LORD called to Samuel, who answered, “Here I am.”
Samuel ran to Eli and said, “Here I am. You called me.”
“I did not call you,” Eli said. “Go back to sleep.”
So he went back to sleep.
Again the LORD called Samuel, who rose and went to Eli.
“Here I am,” he said. “You called me.”
But Eli answered, “I did not call you, my son. Go back to sleep.”
At that time Samuel was not familiar with the LORD,
because the LORD had not revealed anything to him as yet.
The LORD called Samuel again, for the third time.
Getting up and going to Eli, he said, “Here I am.
You called me.”
Then Eli understood that the LORD was calling the youth.
So Eli said to Samuel, “Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply,
‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’”
When Samuel went to sleep in his place,
the LORD came and revealed his presence,
calling out as before, “Samuel, Samuel!”
Samuel answered, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”
Samuel grew up, and the LORD was with him,
not permitting any word of his to be without effect.
Thus all Israel from Dan to Beersheba
came to know that Samuel was an accredited prophet of the LORD.
Responsorial Psalm PS 40:2 AND 5, 7-8A, 8B-9, 10
R. (8a and 9a) Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.
I have waited, waited for the LORD,
and he stooped toward me and heard my cry.
Blessed the man who makes the LORD his trust;
who turns not to idolatry
or to those who stray after falsehood.
R. Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.
Sacrifice or oblation you wished not,
but ears open to obedience you gave me.
Burnt offerings or sin-offerings you sought not;
then said I, “Behold I come.”
R. Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.
“In the written scroll it is prescribed for me.
To do your will, O my God, is my delight,
and your law is within my heart!”
R. Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.
I announced your justice in the vast assembly;
I did not restrain my lips, as you, O LORD, know.
R. Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.
Alleluia JN 10:27
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord.
I know them, and they follow me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel MK 1:29-39
On leaving the synagogue
Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John.
Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever.
They immediately told him about her.
He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up.
Then the fever left her and she waited on them.
When it was evening, after sunset,
they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons.
The whole town was gathered at the door.
He cured many who were sick with various diseases,
and he drove out many demons,
not permitting them to speak because they knew him.
Rising very early before dawn,
he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.
Simon and those who were with him pursued him
and on finding him said, “Everyone is looking for you.”
He told them, “Let us go on to the nearby villages
that I may preach there also.
For this purpose have I come.”
So he went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons
throughout the whole of Galilee.
The post Listening to the Lord in Prayer Even At Night, First Monday (II), January 10, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
14 min
January 07, 2024Responding to the Lord’s Manifestation, Solemnity of the Epiphany, January 7, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY
Solemnity of the Epiphany
January 7, 2024
Is 60:1-6, Ps 72, Eph 3:2-3.5-6, Mt 2:1-12

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.7.24_Homily_1.mp3

The following text guided the homily:
Today we celebrate with joy the feast of the Lord’s epiphany, his “manifestation” to all the Gentiles in the persons of the Wise Men coming from afar, and how every nation and person on earth is meant to respond to that ongoing manifestation. In the Magi, we learn the importance of seeking God, as they did through the study of the heavens and of the ancient Sybilline prophecies. We learn from them how the life of faith is meant to be a journey toward God, a pilgrimage we do with others. We see in them the importance of allowing ourselves to be guided on that pilgrimage, as they were by the star, and as we are by the Scriptures, by the saints, by the Church and by the various indications God gives of his presence among us. We grasp in them how the encounter with the Lord is meant to change us, how he alters our categories and expectations, and how he wants to return from the encounter “by another route,” differently than we arrived, converted to him and his ways.
What I’d like to ponder today is what they show us about how we are to relate to God-with-us when and after we encounter him. St. Matthew tells us that, upon entering the house and seeing the baby Jesus with Mary his mother, they prostrated themselves and paid him homage. They adored him. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh: gifts respectively for a king, a priest, and someone who is going to suffer and die.
The gift of gold points to how we’re supposed to relate, first, to Christ as our King, to serve him, to seek to do his will, to allow him to reign, to live in and try to draw others to live in his kingdom. As we sing in We Three Kings of Orient Are, the most famous English hymn for this solemnity, “Born a King on Bethlehem’s plain, gold I bring to crown him again, King forever, ceasing never, over us all to reign.” Our adoration of the Lord is meant to crown him, to align all our choices to his and to his kingdom. It’s meant to lead us to recognize that we’re not in charge but are stewards, heirs and heiresses, members of the royal family. St. Paul in today’s second reading refers to how, after the mystery of God in Christ was made known to him by Christ’s self-revelation outside the gates of Damascus, he became a steward of God’s grace for their benefit, so that they in Ephesus and all the nations might become coheirs of the Lord’s promise, copartners and members of Christ’s body. Today, without gold, we renew that consecration to Christ the King, to his kingdom and to this stewardship and service.
The gift of incense points to his priesthood, to the way Jesus seeks to unite us to his prayer and to lift us and our prayers up like incense before God the Father. To give him incense at his Epiphany is to commit ourselves to praying with him in his ongoing manifestation to us. Isaiah prophesied that when the caravans of camels, dromedaries [one-humped camels] from Midian and Ephah, and all the people of Sheba came with good and frankincense, they would “proclaim the praises of the Lord.” Our response to Christ’s ongoing manifestation is this prayer, this “homage,” proskinesis in Greek, which means worship and adoration: first, worship of Jesus, and then, through, with and in him, worship of the Father by the help of the Holy Spirit. We sing in today’s famous hymn, “Frankincense to offer have I, incense owns a Deity nigh [incense means God is near], prayer and praising all men raising, worship him God most high.” To celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord well is to recommit ourselves to prayer and to entering into Christ’s prayer, especially his prayer from the Upper Room and the Cross through their living re-presentation in the Holy Eucharist.
That leads us to the third gift, the third means by which we adore Christ at his manifestation. It’s myrrh, which is a yellow, fragrant, sap-like resin that comes from the bark of certain thorny trees in Somalia, Oman, Yemen, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia. Myrrh was used in the ancient world, and still in some cultures today, to heal wounds, dull pain, and fight germs, but particularly, because of its fragrant aroma and antiseptic qualities, it was used for burial, to overcome the stench of death and prevent the spread of disease. We see it used at Christ’s crucifixion when St. Mark says Jesus was offered on the Cross a drink of “wine mixed with myrrh” (Mk 15:23) and then at his burial, when Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea brought a 100-pound mixture of aloes and myrrh to anoint Jesus’ body (Jn 19:39). To give a baby myrrh was a prophetic sign that he would suffer and die. As we sing, “Myrrh is mine, it’s bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom, sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in the stone-cold tomb.” As we pay the Baby Jesus homage today, we learn from the wise men about the necessity of ever relating to Jesus in his passion, in his suffering and death out of love for us. To give him myrrh spiritually signifies a desire to unite ourselves to him in his sacrifice. This means not merely to enter into his saving oblation from the Cross, but to make up what is lacking in us of his sufferings for the sake of his body, the Church (Col 1:24). It means to commit ourselves to imitating and extending his self-giving love, sacrificing ourselves, giving our body and blood, in charity for others, especially those in most need. We are called perpetually to give him myrrh in the way we care for him in our suffering brothers and sisters.
As we celebrate the Epiphany today, we thank God for the gift of the lessons he teaches through the wise men about how we are to pay him homage, relating to him as the King whom we obey, as our Priest with whom we pray, as our Saving Oblation to whom we unite in loving Sacrifice. We make this homage most fittingly at the Mass, where we encounter the same Jesus as the Wise Men did, just looking different. It’s here we meet the newborn King of the Jews and the King of the Universe, humbly reigning not in swaddling clothes but under even humbler appearances. It’s here we enter into his prayer and his sacrifice. It’s here that he seeks to change us just as much as he changed Melchior, Balthasar and Kaspar, so that we might become like stars for others drawing them to the Lord’s continuous epiphany on the altar, indeed, becoming stars of wonder, stars of night, stars with royal beauty bright, westward leading (from Bethlehem), still proceeding, guiding others to his perfect light!

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading I
Is 60:1-6
Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come,
the glory of the Lord shines upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth,
and thick clouds cover the peoples;
but upon you the LORD shines,
and over you appears his glory.
Nations shall walk by your light,
and kings by your shining radiance.
Raise your eyes and look about;
they all gather and come to you:
your sons come from afar,
and your daughters in the arms of their nurses.
Then you shall be radiant at what you see,
your heart shall throb and overflow,
for the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you,
the wealth of nations shall be brought to you.
Caravans of camels shall fill you,
dromedaries from Midian and Ephah;
all from Sheba shall come
bearing gold and frankincense,
and proclaiming the praises of the LORD.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13.
R. (cf. 11) Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
O God, with your judgment endow the king,
and with your justice, the king’s son;
He shall govern your people with justice
and your afflicted ones with judgment.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
Justice shall flower in his days,
and profound peace, till the moon be no more.
May he rule from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
The kings of Tarshish and the Isles shall offer gifts;
the kings of Arabia and Seba shall bring tribute.
All kings shall pay him homage,
all nations shall serve him.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
For he shall rescue the poor when he cries out,
and the afflicted when he has no one to help him.
He shall have pity for the lowly and the poor;
the lives of the poor he shall save.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
Reading II
Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6
Brothers and sisters:
You have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace
that was given to me for your benefit,
namely, that the mystery was made known to me by revelation.
It was not made known to people in other generations
as it has now been revealed
to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit:
that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body,
and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
Alleluia
Mt 2:2
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
We saw his star at its rising
and have come to do him homage.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Mt 2:1-12
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea,
in the days of King Herod,
behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,
“Where is the newborn king of the Jews?
We saw his star at its rising
and have come to do him homage.”
When King Herod heard this,
he was greatly troubled,
and all Jerusalem with him.
Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people,
He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea,
for thus it has been written through the prophet:
And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
since from you shall come a ruler,
who is to shepherd my people Israel.”
Then Herod called the magi secretly
and ascertained from them the time of the star’s appearance.
He sent them to Bethlehem and said,
“Go and search diligently for the child.
When you have found him, bring me word,
that I too may go and do him homage.”
After their audience with the king they set out.
And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them,
until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
They were overjoyed at seeing the star,
and on entering the house
they saw the child with Mary his mother.
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Then they opened their treasures
and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod,
they departed for their country by another way.
The post Responding to the Lord’s Manifestation, Solemnity of the Epiphany, January 7, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
11 min
January 06, 2024Solemnity of the Epiphany, Conservations with Consequences Podcast, January 6, 2024
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Solemnity of the Epiphany, Vigil
January 6, 2024

To listen to an audio recording of the brief homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.6.24_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

The following text guided the homily:
This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy to have a chance to ponder with you the consequential conversation God wants to have with us this Sunday, as the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, his “manifestation” to all the nations represented by the wisemen coming from afar.
In recent days, the importance of wisdom has become even more obvious. We’ve had the presidents of two of our most prestigious universities resign because of their incapacity to see and state the obvious and condemn Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attacks, any and all calls for the genocide of Jews whatever the context, and anti-Semitism, blinded by modern Marxist ideologies that have infected many places of higher education. We’ve likewise had a senior Vatican official charged with defending and promoting the Catholic faith unbelievably release a declaration, the week before Christmas, on blessing same-sex couples and those in irregular situations, changing the focus from the good news of great joy for all the people to the obviously confusing headlines of whether the Church is changing her teaching on sexual sins and marriage. And in a presidential election year, many are more prone to see the evident lack of wisdom in those competing for our support and in their policies and ideas. All of these situations and others reveal the crucial importance of wisdom in an age in which political, cultural and even religious leaders are increasingly confused.
That’s why it’s so important for us, on the Solemnity of the Epiphany, to learn from the men whom tradition has always called “wise,” to go on pilgrimage with them to Bethlehem, and to learn from them invaluable lessons not just about how we’re called to relate to the coming of God into the world but on how to grow wise. We can ponder five lessons.
The first thing we learn from the wise men is the importance of seeking God.
To be wise, we must look at things from God’s perspective, and that requires effort. When they saw the star at its rising, they not only interpreted that God was trying to communicate something to them in general, but that God, in accordance with ancient Sybilline prophecies, was specifically heralding the birth of the newborn King in the east, who would be a universal king. 2000 years ago, in the deserts of the Middle East and on the seas, people were highly dependent on the fixed stars in the sky as references for their direction. They firmly believed that God had made them this way for that reason. Whenever anything happened in the sky that was new — like the appearance of a comet, or meteor shower, or a planet’s or star’s shining more brightly — the ancients thought that it had to bear some message from the creator of the heavens. When they saw the star at its rising, they didn’t respond as curious astrologers but as those who hungered to find what they sought. Led by the star, and their simple trust in its supposed meaning, the wise men went on a journey toward the Holy Land. We don’t know how long their pilgrimage took, but the Gospel gives us indications that it wasn’t brief. After Herod asked them the exact time of the appearance of the star, and then, a short time later, after they did not return to him, he proceeded to kill every boy in Bethlehem under two years of age. So the time of their preparation and the journey to get there probably took 18-24 months. Whether they walked or had the help of animals, they made the lengthy journey because they believed God was speaking to them through the star. Anyone seeking wisdom must be willing to make such a journey seeking God and the truth.
The second thing the wise men show us is that the search for wisdom is a pilgrimage we’re called to make together.
The wise men were ready to move. Even though they must have had good lives where they were since they could afford a long journey and precious gifts at their arrival, they accounted being with the newborn universal king more important than staying where they were. They were willing to leave everything behind and make a long, difficult journey, following the star they had seen in the East. But they grasped that this was an intellectual and existential journey they were not supposed to make alone. They knew that in order to make the destination, they needed each other, but more than that, they wanted to journey together. Likewise, the search for wisdom and the Catholic pilgrimage of faith are not do-it-yourself things. We need the help of others. Just as much as pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago, we need fellow travelers. Spouses need each other. Children need their parents. We all need our friends and spiritual siblings. Parishioners and priests need each other. The Church’s pilgrimage is a family journey, one done in communion, trying not to leave anyone behind, but getting everyone moving, in which we help each other find God, learn better who we are, and how we’re supposed to live.
Third, the journey of the Magi shows us that we need to be guided on the path of wisdom and faith.
They got to Bethlehem because they allowed themselves to be guided by the star. They were attentive and obedient to the guidance God had given them. Likewise, we all need to be guided. God guides us, of course, in Sacred Scripture, which we should study more assiduously than the wise men studied the stars. God guides us through the Church, and hence the Catechism is a compass for our intellects and our conscience. A third guide is the witness of the saints, those who have made the journey, show us the way, and accompany us by their prayers. This guidance can often be surprising and opposed to “conventional wisdom,” which is often not wise at all. When the wise men found Jesus, he was far from what they must have been expecting. They naturally expected to find the newborn king in a palace, not in a stable; wrapped in royal purple, not in swaddling clothes; surrounded by courtiers, not by animals and shepherds. Yet when they found him as he was, they didn’t turn back. They were willing to let their own categories be changed by God rather than try to fit God into their own categories. They had to change their ideas about God, man, wisdom, and power. Likewise throughout life, we must learn though God’s guidance that God’s ways are not as we imagine them or as we might wish them to be, and that we must learn how to conform our ways to his, especially when he asks us to model our life on the mystery of his self-giving love on the Cross.
Fourth, the wise men teach us all about the importance of adoration.
The greatest gift they gave the Baby Lord Jesus was not gold, frankincense and myrrh, but themselves. St. Matthew tells us that they prostrated themselves and did him homage. They adored him. It wasn’t enough to know about him or to meet him. They needed to love him with all their heart, mind, soul, strength, time and gifts. If the fear or awe of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, true sacrificial love of the Lord is the way wisdom grows. This truth leads us to the subject of prayer and adoration. The same Jesus before whom they prostrated themselves comes to our Churches on the altar and waits for us in the monstrance and tabernacle. He wants to fill us with his wisdom. Like the wise men, however, to grow in this gift, we must prostrate ourselves in humble homage before him, placing ourselves and our gifts in his service, as he seeks in his humility and majesty to bless us.
Lastly, the wise men show us how the encounter with Christ is meant to change us.
St. Matthew says that the wise men returned home “by another route,” which many saints and scholars have said points to far more than a detour to evade Herod. It indicates, rather, that they returned changed, different than they arrived, converted more and more to the new King’s way and categories, to the way of wisdom, faith, and Christ-like love. The Lord similarly wants to change us. Every time we journey to Mass, every time we come together with others on pilgrimage to bring to him our gifts and sacrifices but especially the offering of our whole life, we’re supposed to leave changed, made wiser by the Word we heard, changed by our praying the collects and petitions, transformed by becoming one with the Lord on the inside. Every Mass is meant to change our life forever and send us back by different, transformed for the better, following no longer our own way but following Jesus’ own path. This is what the world most needs: as Christ transforms us, he sends us out to transform the Church, culture and the world. He fills us with his wisdom and wants us to help others come to know and live it. Our contemporaries desperately need us to be the “wise men” who show them how to live, who indicate to them how to become wise. We do this, above all, by pointing to the star of the tabernacle lamp and altar candles where the continuous epiphany of the Lord takes place and encouraging those we know to join us on the journey to find Christ and enter into life-changing communion with him. God is calling us to be the modern Melchiors, Balthasars, and Kaspars, and he wants to give us at Mass the wisdom, the grace, the help he knows we need to fulfill the mission! As we fall to our knees this Sunday before the same Lord before whom the wise men prostrated themselves as a small, poor, vulnerable infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, God wants us, like them, to discover the glory of God in the highest and the road to peace on earth. Let us, therefore, go with haste to Bethlehem and adore him!

The Gospel passage on which the homily was based was:
Gospel
Mt 2:1-12
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea,
in the days of King Herod,
behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,
“Where is the newborn king of the Jews?
We saw his star at its rising
and have come to do him homage.”
When King Herod heard this,
he was greatly troubled,
and all Jerusalem with him.
Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people,
He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea,
for thus it has been written through the prophet:
And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
since from you shall come a ruler,
who is to shepherd my people Israel.”
Then Herod called the magi secretly
and ascertained from them the time of the star’s appearance.
He sent them to Bethlehem and said,
“Go and search diligently for the child.
When you have found him, bring me word,
that I too may go and do him homage.”
After their audience with the king they set out.
And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them,
until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
They were overjoyed at seeing the star,
and on entering the house
they saw the child with Mary his mother.
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Then they opened their treasures
and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod,
they departed for their country by another way.
The post Solemnity of the Epiphany, Conservations with Consequences Podcast, January 6, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
10 min
December 30, 2023Solemnity of the Holy Family (B), Conservations with Consequences Podcast, December 30, 2023
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Solemnity of the Holy Family, B, Vigil
December 30, 2023

To listen to an audio recording of the brief homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.30.23_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

The following text guided the homily:
This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy to have a chance to ponder with you the consequential conversation God wants to have with us this Sunday and Monday, as the Church celebrates back to back the Solemnities of the Holy Family and of Mary, Mother of God.
We are still very much in the Octave of Christmas, which is first and fundamentally the celebration of how God so loved the world and took on our human nature himself so that he might fully restore us to the divine image and likeness. He entered into conversation with the human race, taking on our humanity so that ultimately, through his saving work, we might take on his divinity. The priority of Christmas is always on that gift of God’s coming into our world to save and sanctify us and show us the way to live forever with God-with us. The second part of that conversation is how we respond to God’s opening, grace-filled outreach. And so we’re beckoned to respond to him like the Shepherds, the Wisemen, the angels and the animals, to make a spiritual pilgrimage to Bethlehem and, filled with awe, adore, praise and thank God for the greatest of all gifts.
To help us learn how to receive the gift of Christmas and how to respond, the Church always has us celebrate on the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas the Solemnity of the Holy Family, because we see in the Holy Family of Joseph and Mary how to react to the gift of Jesus, God with us, not just as individuals but in the communion of our own family, with the family of the Church, and, even more broadly, in the human family.
It’s an amazing truth that when the Son of God became man, when the Word became flesh, he chose to be conceived and be born within a family of an already committed husband and wife. He didn’t choose to come as a 30-year-old adult, or a teenager, or an 80-year-old sage. He didn’t choose to be born of a single mom, or raised by two men or two women, or some other arrangement. He chose to be born within a nuclear family … precisely in order to redeem the family. The family is always in need of redemption. We know that with the first family of Adam and Eve, the devil succeeded in separating husband and wife from God and from each other, and we see the immediate consequences of the devil’s work in the next generation when Cain slew his brother Abel. Because the family is meant to be the world’s greatest image of God as a loving communion of persons, the devil never ceases to go after the family. We see it in how Herod sent his henchmen to try to assassinate the baby Jesus, terrorizing not only the Holy Family but all the families of ancient Bethlehem. The feast of the Holy Family is an annual opportunity allows us to reflect together on the purpose of the family, what it means to be a husband and father, a wife and mother, a child and brother or sister. The family has a purpose in God’s plan; it’s meant to be a school of love, a domestic Church, a gift of God to help all of the members of the family grow into the realization of who God created each of them to be. In the Opening Prayer of Sunday’s Mass, we’ll pray, “O God, who were pleased to give us the shining example of the Holy Family, graciously grant that we may imitate them in practicing the virtues of family life and the bonds of charity.” All of us can learn so much from virtues and love of Jesus, Mary and Joseph about how to make our families schools of love. Their family is called the “Holy Family” because holiness is the perfection of love. For our families to become holy families, the family has to be a school of love, which means learning to model itself on the loving choices and priorities we see in Bethlehem and beyond.
Let’s look at three of the elements that made the Holy Family holy.
First and foremost, Mary and Joseph were holy because they were totally centered on Jesus, the living Son of God. Every family is called to center its life on God in the various aspects of its co-existence, recognizing that God-with-us is with them. Just as the baby Jesus totally changed the life of Joseph and Mary such that he became the focus of all they did, so Jesus is meant to change the priorities of every family, that he become part of every aspect of their life. This is where the holiness of the family begins.
Secondly, Mary and Joseph became holy by striving to do God’s will and seeking to help each other to do God’s will. Mary said, in becoming God’s mother, “Let it be done to me according to your word.” Joseph was constantly obeying God through the Angel, to take Mary as his wife, to flee with Mary and Jesus into Egypt, to return from Egypt after Herod’s death, and to go to Nazareth. We see the two of them, in this Sunday’s Gospel, scrupulously obeying the law of Moses in taking Jesus to the temple 40 days after his birth for the mystery of the presentation. Jesus’ whole life, too, is a lesson in obedience. St. Luke tells us that Jesus was obedient to Mary and Joseph, growing in wisdom and understanding; this was part of his loving obedience to God the Father, which he continued the whole of his life even to death on the Cross. The Holy Family was holy because it always sought to do God’s will and help each other to fulfill what God was asking. Every family that wants to be holy is called to do the same.
Thirdly, and related to both of these, the Holy Family was holy because it prayed. We read in the Gospels that the three of them would go regularly up to the Temple on the major feasts to pray. They would go to the synagogue at least every Sabbath. It was obvious that they also prayed a great deal at home, because when Jesus was caught among the teachers in the Temple at 12, he was already capable of amazing them with his questions. Jesus became familiar with the Sacred Scriptures according to his humanity because both Mary and Joseph taught him Hebrew, like all Jews, by reading Sacred Scripture and meditating upon it with him. But prayer is more than merely saying our prayers. Mary and Joseph were both contemplatives. Mary’s whole life is a lesson of prayer, from the Archangel Gabriel’s encountering her there, to her Magnificat, to her standing at the foot of the cross, to her treasuring everything in her heart. St. Joseph was a man of silent prayer and the grace-filled action flowing from that prayer. That’s the school in which Jesus himself was raised. Likewise any family that seeks holiness, that wants to be what God calls it to be, has to pray, going up to the temple — the Church — as a family and then at home, from the earliest days, saying prayers together so that children can learn how to speak and listen to God, but then likewise teaching them how to ponder within one’s heart not only what God says but what God has done and continuing to do.
The feast of the Holy Family, in the heart of the Christmas Octave, is an opportunity for each family to examine itself as to the extent to which it is imitating the Holy Family in making Jesus the center of their family life, in praying together, in encouraging and inspiring each other to be obedient to God’s will through their own example. The Church has us build on those lessons as we finish the Christmas octave and begin a new civil year, by focusing even more deeply on Mary and focusing on her motherhood. She was the woman God the Father chose to be the mother of his Son and that Son from the Cross called to be our mother. If we’re going to live 2024 in a holy way, each of our families and the family of the Church needs to learn from Mary as mother. Mary does this by helping us contemplatively to review the previous year and prepare for the new so that our life, like hers, can become what St. John the Evangelist calls “grace upon grace.” In Monday’s Gospel, which features the visit of the shepherds to Bethlehem, St. Luke tells us, “Mary kept all of these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” Pope Benedict XVI, who died one year ago on December 31 and for whom we devoutly pray, talked about Mary’s contemplative heart in his apostolic exhortation on the Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church. He said that Mary was “ever attentive to God’s word” and lived “completely attuned to that word, treasur[ing] in her heart the events of her Son, piecing them together as if in a single mosaic.” She put everything together like the pieces of a masterpiece mosaic and treasured not just the pieces but the whole.Mary shows us all in the Church how to piece together all of the events of our life to the events of Jesus’ life and to understand our ups and downs in connection with God-with-us. This means that the events of the past year and the events of the new aren’t random or disconnected. Every year is like a new chapter in a book, but it’s not a new book. It’s building on what God has been trying to do in our life up until now, what he’s done for the world in Christ, what he did all the way back to Creation. Everything that happens this year — including the crosses we’ll be asked to carry — is building upon so many gifts that God has already given. But we need a contemplative heart, a heart that connects the dots and treasures everything God gives, in order to perceive it. That’s what Mary, our Mother, wants to help us to learn.
The culmination of the Solemnities of the Holy Family and of Mary, Mother of God, happens at the altar, where we come together as a family to center ourselves on Jesus, to enter into the prayer of the Church both in heaven and on earth, and to help each other to obey him, beginning with his words, “Do this in memory of me.” Just as Mary the Mother of God held her Son and pondered the miracle of his incarnation and birth, so we’re called, with her, to ponder the meaning of his continued incarnation on the altar as we prepare to hold him in our hands or receive him on our tongues. Mary’s prayerful adoration of Jesus in Bethlehem is a model for our own at Mass, just as her Fiat or “Let it be done to me according to your word” is an example for our own “Amen,” or our public commitment to build our life on the reality of God-with-us in the Eucharist. Jesus has come to redeem the family, our family, the family of the Church, and the whole human family. The Eucharist is the means. And Mary and Joseph show us how to receive the gift of Jesus in the Eucharist with the same wonder and consequence as they received the gift of Jesus in Bethlehem. God bless you all!

The Gospels on which this homily was based were:
Gospel
LK 2:22-40
When the days were completed for their purification
according to the law of Moses,
They took him up to Jerusalem
to present him to the Lord,
just as it is written in the law of the Lord,
Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord,
and to offer the sacrifice of
a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons,
in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.
Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon.
This man was righteous and devout,
awaiting the consolation of Israel,
and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit
that he should not see death
before he had seen the Christ of the Lord.
He came in the Spirit into the temple;
and when the parents brought in the child Jesus
to perform the custom of the law in regard to him,
He took him into his arms and blessed God, saying:
“Now, Master, you may let your servant go
in peace, according to your word,
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you prepared in sight of all the peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and glory for your people Israel.”
The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him;
and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother,
“Behold, this child is destined
for the fall and rise of many in Israel,
and to be a sign that will be contradicted
—and you yourself a sword will pierce—
so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”
There was also a prophetess, Anna,
the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher.
She was advanced in years,
having lived seven years with her husband after her marriage,
and then as a widow until she was eighty-four.
She never left the temple,
but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer.
And coming forward at that very time,
she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child
to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.
When they had fulfilled all the prescriptions
of the law of the Lord,
they returned to Galilee,
to their own town of Nazareth.
The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom;
and the favor of God was upon him.
Gospel
Lk 2:16-21
The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph,
and the infant lying in the manger.
When they saw this,
they made known the message
that had been told them about this child.
All who heard it were amazed
by what had been told them by the shepherds.
And Mary kept all these things,
reflecting on them in her heart.
Then the shepherds returned,
glorifying and praising God
for all they had heard and seen,
just as it had been told to them.
When eight days were completed for his circumcision,
he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel
before he was conceived in the womb.
The post Solemnity of the Holy Family (B), Conservations with Consequences Podcast, December 30, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
10 min
December 23, 2023Fourth Sunday of Advent (B), Conservations with Consequences Podcast, December 23, 2023
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, B, Vigil
December 23, 2023

To listen to an audio recording of the brief homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.23.23_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

The following text guided the homily:
This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy to have a chance to ponder with you the consequential conversation God wants to have with us on the Fourth Sunday of Advent and on Christmas. Because the Fourth Sunday and Christmas take place this year on back-to-back days, I’d like to try to mention both in our conversation today. On Sunday this year, the Church has us ponder Mary in the mystery of the Annunciation. The Church invites us, so to speak, to climb within Mary’s womb, so that we might draw close to that womb’s Blessed Fruit as he is silently growing and try to calibrate our prayer to Mary’s contemplative heartbeat. Mary is, in a sense, Advent personified. She is the one whom God himself prepared, through her Immaculate Conception, for the incarnation and birth of his Son, the Word of God. What lessons do we learn from Mary, especially as we ponder the scene of the Archangel Gabriel’s visit to her asking if she would become the mother of the Son of God?
The first thing is that we need to allow God to clean our interior abode, as God did so with Mary through her Immaculate Conception. God gives us that grace through baptism and confession. In this way, Mary each Advent continues the work of St. John the Baptist, gently, maternally, calling us to be free from sin so that, like her, we may welcome God within. Have you made a good confession yet this Advent?
The second thing Mary helps us to do is to pray. She is a model of prayer. Her expectant prayer was the culmination of the centuries of supplications of the Jewish people awaiting the Messiah. She treasured everything in her heart. She longed for God. The Archangel Gabriel said to her, “The Lord is with you,” and she sought always to be with the Lord. Mary wants to help us during these days to enter her contemplative academy. May we be good students!
The third thing Mary wants to help us learn is amazement at the mysteries we’re celebrating. As pure as she was, as much as she prayed, little could she have ever imagined that the long-awaited Messiah would be God the Son and that God the Son would be her son according to the flesh. She became for nine months the living temple of God! Sometimes, when the practice of faith becomes routine, we can lose our sense of wonder. The Church has us ponder Mary to help us rekindle the wonder of our minds and hearts at the mystery of the incarnation, not merely 2,000 years ago, but now, in the ongoing incarnation of the holy Eucharist.
Fourth, Mary teaches us about how God’s life is meant to grow within us and change our life. Like the baby Jesus did in Mary’s life, Jesus wants to take on our flesh, to change the way we eat, sleep, walk and live, and eventually become so big that we can no longer contain him within. “What took place for Mary,” Pope Benedict once said, “can daily take place in each of us, in the hearing of the word and in the celebration of the sacraments.” It not only can take place, but is supposed to, if only we learn from Mary how to cooperate.
So the way we need to prepare for Christmas is to relive Mary’s mystery in Christ: to live by faith, like her, to abandon ourselves to God’s love, to entrust ourselves to his plan. That’s what the Church underlines this year on the Fourth Sunday of Advent.
That brings us to Christmas. There are four different Gospels to ponder: at the Vigil Mass, we hear St. Matthew’s version of the appearance of the angel to Joseph, affirming that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and helping us to relate to Jesus by the names Emmanuel, or “God-with-us,” and Jesus, or “God saves.” At Midnight Mass, we focus on what the Angels said and sang to the vigilant Shepherds about Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. At the Mass at Dawn, we ponder how the Shepherds hastily ran to Bethlehem to pay homage to Jesus and to relate to Mary and Joseph what the angels had said to them. And at Mass during the Day, we focus on St. John’s profound words about how in the baby Jesus, “The Word became flesh and dwelled among us … and we have seen his glory.” Each of these readings are worthy of dedicating an entire retreat, not to mention a homily.
But what I’d like to focus on is another type of consequential conversation we’re called to have this Christmas: the dialogue that is supposed to happen for us before the crèche. We live at a time in which Christmas manger scenes are so much a part of Catholic piety that many believe that they must have existed from the first centuries of Christianity. But they are an “invention” of Saint Francis of Assisi, who 800 years ago this year, created the first living nativity in the mountainous Italian village of Greccio, located about half-way between Rome and Assisi. The topography and architecture of Greccio — where Francis would frequently stay in to preach and to pray — reminded him of Bethlehem, which he had visited four years before. So with the permission of Pope Honorius III, and the help of Greccio’s chief nobleman Giovanni Veleti, Francis decided to try to bring the mystery of Bethlehem alive.
His first biographer, Thomas of Celano, says that “of Greccio there was made as it were a new Bethlehem.” Per Francis’ instructions, Veleti arranged in a cave an ox, an ass and a manger full of straw. The townspeople came in huge numbers with tapers and torches that combined to illumine the night like the ancient star of Bethlehem. Directly over the manger, a makeshift altar was erected to celebrate Mass. It’s the only recorded time that St. Francis served as a deacon: he chanted the Gospel with “an earnest, sweet, clear and loud voice,” preached “mellifluous words concerning the birth of the poor King in the little town of Bethlehem” and with “exceeding love” called people to adore the “Bambino” of Bethlehem.
Celano notes the impact the living nativity and the Mass had on the townspeople: “The Child Jesus had been forgotten in the hearts of many, but, by the working of divine grace, he was brought to life again through his servant Francis and stamped upon their fervent memory.” Note that the details of the birth of Christ hadn’t been forgotten in people’s heads; they had, however, failed to penetrate their hearts and lives. While they still knew the facts, devotion had grown cold. The nativity scene and the Mass — the Gospel, the homily, and the living presence of Christ in the Eucharist — combined to revivify it.
This Christmas, as we look with gratitude to the living nativity of 1223, it’s important to remember the lessons of Greccio. For the last several years, Pope Francis has been trying to lead people to Greccio, through Greccio to Bethlehem, through Bethlehem to the Baby Jesus and from the Baby Jesus to Christ today. This past Wednesday, the Holy Father dedicated his General Audience to the octocentenary. Last month, the Vatican published a book entitled, “Christmas at the Nativity,” compiling Pope Francis’ words over the last decade about Nativity scenes. In it the Holy Father emphasizes that the crèche is a “living Gospel overflowing from the pages of Holy Scripture.” He himself has visited Greccio twice, in 2016 and 2019, and on that second occasion, he signed a beautiful Apostolic Letter on the meaning and importance of the Nativity scenes, encouraging the faithful to set them up not only in their homes but in workplaces, schools, hospitals, prisons and town squares. He urged us to use the creche both to pray and to evangelize, emphasizing, “The Christmas crèche is part of the precious yet demanding process of passing on the faith. Beginning in childhood, and at every stage of our lives, it teaches us to contemplate Jesus, to experience God’s love for us, to feel and believe that God is with us and that we are with him, his children, brothers and sisters all, thanks to that Child who is the Son of God and the Son of the Virgin Mary.”
But I’d like to underline one more connection that both Saint Francis and Pope Francis make, because it’s essential to the Eucharistic Revival taking place in the Church in the United States. There in the cave of Greccio, St. Francis built an altar over the manger, to show the connection between the Child Jesus —whom Mary, Joseph, the angels, shepherds, Magi and animals adored in Bethlehem — and the Eucharistic Jesus that the Church in heaven and on earth continues to worship on the altar. Pope Francis said that when the priest in Greccio “solemnly celebrated the Eucharist over the manger,” “the bond between the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Eucharist” was highlighted. There is this tight bond between the two that we should never miss or take for granted. We can say, with the wonder of the shepherds and wise men, that one who would be called “Emmanuel,” or “God with us,” by his own supremely loving decision has chosen to remain with us always until the end of time in the holy Eucharist. The One born in Bethlehem — literally “House of Bread” in Hebrew — has come as the “Living Bread come down from heaven” (Jn 6:51), so that we might eat of him and experience salvation over death. The Mass is the means Christ himself implemented, we can say, to perpetuate, revivify and advance the mystery of Bethlehem.
So as we prepare to go to Bethlehem spiritually with the help of our manger scenes, we do so conscious that we have the privilege to do something that the shepherds, Magi, and even Joseph and Mary did not have the chance to do in Bethlehem: to receive within us and adore on the inside the One whom they only adored outside in swaddling clothes. That’s where our consequential conversation is meant to lead us. What an incredible gift! O Come, Let us Adore Him, on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, on Christmas and beyond.

These were the Gospels on which the homily was based:
Gospel
Lk 1:26-38
The angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of David,
and the virgin’s name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said,
“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”
But she was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her,
“Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.
“Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
But Mary said to the angel,
“How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?”
And the angel said to her in reply,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, Elizabeth, your relative,
has also conceived a son in her old age,
and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;
for nothing will be impossible for God.”
Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”
Then the angel departed from her.
Gospel
Mt 1:18-25
This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.
When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph,
but before they lived together,
she was found with child through the Holy Spirit.
Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man,
yet unwilling to expose her to shame,
decided to divorce her quietly.
Such was his intention when, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
“Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.
For it is through the Holy Spirit
that this child has been conceived in her.
She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus,
because he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill
what the Lord had said through the prophet:
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,
which means “God is with us.”
When Joseph awoke,
he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him
and took his wife into his home.
He had no relations with her until she bore a son,
and he named him Jesus.
Gospel
Lk 2:1-14
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus
that the whole world should be enrolled.
This was the first enrollment,
when Quirinius was governor of Syria.
So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town.
And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth
to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem,
because he was of the house and family of David,
to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.
While they were there,
the time came for her to have her child,
and she gave birth to her firstborn son.
She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger,
because there was no room for them in the inn.
Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields
and keeping the night watch over their flock.
The angel of the Lord appeared to them
and the glory of the Lord shone around them,
and they were struck with great fear.
The angel said to them,
“Do not be afraid;
for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy
that will be for all the people.
For today in the city of David
a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.
And this will be a sign for you:
you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes
and lying in a manger.”
And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel,
praising God and saying:
“Glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
Gospel
Lk 2:15-20
When the angels went away from them to heaven,
the shepherds said to one another,
“Let us go, then, to Bethlehem
to see this thing that has taken place,
which the Lord has made known to us.”
So they went in haste and found Mary and Joseph,
and the infant lying in the manger.
When they saw this,
they made known the message
that had been told them about this child.
All who heard it were amazed
by what had been told them by the shepherds.
And Mary kept all these things,
reflecting on them in her heart.
Then the shepherds returned,
glorifying and praising God
for all they had heard and seen,
just as it had been told to them.
Gospel
Jn 1:1-18
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him,
and without him nothing came to be.
What came to be through him was life,
and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.
A man named John was sent from God.
He came for testimony, to testify to the light,
so that all might believe through him.
He was not the light,
but came to testify to the light.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world,
and the world came to be through him,
but the world did not know him.
He came to what was his own,
but his own people did not accept him.
But to those who did accept him
he gave power to become children of God,
to those who believe in his name,
who were born not by natural generation
nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision
but of God.
And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory as of the Father’s only Son,
full of grace and truth.
John testified to him and cried out, saying,
“This was he of whom I said,
‘The one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me
because he existed before me.’”
From his fullness we have all received,
grace in place of grace,
because while the law was given through Moses,
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God.
The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side,
has revealed him.
The post Fourth Sunday of Advent (B), Conservations with Consequences Podcast, December 23, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
10 min
December 22, 2023Letting Our Soul and Spirit Burst in Praise and Thanksgiving, December 22, 2023
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Mass for December 22
December 22, 2022
1 Sam 1:24-28, 1 Sam 2:1.4-8, Lk 1:46-56

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.22.23_Homily_1.mp3

The following points were attempted in the homily:
For me, one of the most evocative phrases of the second phase of Advent is a line we pray in the Advent Preface the Church prays at all of the Masses between December 17 and 24: “The Virgin Mother longed for him with love beyond all telling.” Advent is a season of longing, of desire, and no one shows us that desire better than Mary, not only as Daughter Zion summing up in herself the longings of the Jewish people across the centuries awaiting the coming of the Messiah, but also as the Mother chosen by God the Father to conceive and bear that Messiah, that Son of the Living God. So many first-time moms are bursting with excitement for the birth of their child. Mary’s longing was, the Preface reminds us, beyond all description. She wants to help us enter into that holy longing.
Today’s Gospel shows us how our Advent longing is both a now and not yet. She was pregnant not just with the long-awaited Messiah but the Son of the eternal Father. She already was carrying the fulfillment, but she was still longing to give birth to him, to hold him, to share him with others. But she was bursting already with praise and thanksgiving to God for the fulfillment of all he had promised. What she said only a few days into her pregnancy was what she would say, even more intensely and joyously, the rest of her days into eternity, because what she longed for with love beyond all telling had come even more wondrously than she and her fellow Jews would have ever dreamed.
Mary shows us how to exult now at the presence of the Savior and to get ready even more to exult at his second coming, when, by his grace, we will be ready to leave the womb of the earth into the eternal presence of God-with-us. Mary shows us how to praise God in her Magnificat in today’s Gospel. She begins,“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Our souls are meant to magnify God and God, in fulfilling our desires, has given us so many reasons for soul-bursting praise. The Almighty has done great things for us and holy is his name! At the same time, we see that in order to praise and thank God aright, we need to experience longing for him and for the gifts that come from his generous hand. Mary describes how God looks on us in our lowliness, how he defends the innocent, the weak and the small with the strength of his arm, how he lifts us up the lowly, how he fills the hungry with good things, how he routinely and mercifully comes to the rescue of Israel. Each of these situations — poverty, hunger, weakness, even desperation — increases our recognition of our need to be saved and stokes our longing. And then when God comes in response to the prayers made out of that longing, how can our souls remain quiet? In her Magnificat, as Biblical scholars always point out, Mary synthesized various testimonies from famous women in the Old Testament, like the hymn of praise — which we have today in place of the Psalm — uttered by Hannah after God removed the shame of her sterility and allowed her to conceive and give birth to the one who would become the great prophet Samuel. The Blessed Mother incorporates as well Judith’s celebratory hymn after God saves Israel by working a miracle through her (Judith 16) . She also interweaves so many of the Psalms and aphorism of the wisdom literature.
One line in Hannah’s praise that is part of the background texture of the Magnificat is particularly fitting to focus on. Hannah said that God “raises the needy from the dust, from the dung heap he lifts up the poor, to seat them with nobles and make a glorious throne their heritage.” The Lord who formed us from the dust lifts us up from the dust, elevates us from the dung and makes us noble and our throne glorious. That’s what God does for us when Jesus comes. That describes the “turnarounds” Mary praises in the Magnificat. The Mass for Christmas Day has a beautiful prayer that priests in the Latin Rite pray every day either in full (Extraordinary Form) or in an abbreviated (Ordinary Form) way when they pour the drop of water (symbolizing our humanity) into the chalice filled with wine (symbolizing Christ’s divinity). “Deus, qui humanae substantiae dignitatem mirabiliter condidisti, et mirabilius reformasti, da, quaesumus, nobis eius divinitatis esse consortes, qui humanitatis nostrae fieri dignatus est particeps.” The Opening Prayer for the Mass on Christmas morning translates it: “O God, who wonderfully created the dignity of human nature and still more wonderfully restored it, grant we pray, that we may share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” God created us wonderfully from the dust at the beginning but the way he has “reformed” us is even more remarkable, taking on our humanity so that we may become sharers in his divinity. He blew into us at the beginning of time the spirit that brought us to life; now he breathes on us the power of the Holy Spirit (Jn 20:22), so that we may experience his own divine life inside of us. When we grasp our fallenness, that we are dust and return to dust, but that God has come not only to breathe within us our soul but give us the Holy Spirit to make us sharers in God’s immortal nature and holiness, then we cannot help but sing a Magnificat! We have a longing beyond telling for the grace to overcome our fallen nature and when the long-desired One comes to fulfill that desire, we and all generations in heaven will never be able to cease describing how blessed we are!
The best way to stoke that longing is by responding to God’s grace to long for him here at Mass. Even though we were once just dust, God has exalted us, and there’s no greater sign of that exaltation than here at Mass, when the King of the Nations sets up his throne within us so that we can build our whole life on him the Cornerstone. It’s through entering into communion with him that he seeks to make us one. Let us beg him to increase our longing so that as we prepare to receive him who took on our humanity, we may more and more share in his divinity and so that our whole lives may become a Magnificat that one day we hope to sing in unison with Mary and all the saints.

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 1 sm 1:24-28
In those days,
Hannah brought Samuel with her,
along with a three-year-old bull,
an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine,
and presented him at the temple of the LORD in Shiloh.
After the boy’s father had sacrificed the young bull,
Hannah, his mother, approached Eli and said:
“Pardon, my lord!
As you live, my lord,
I am the woman who stood near you here, praying to the LORD.
I prayed for this child, and the LORD granted my request.
Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD;
as long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the LORD.”
She left Samuel there.
Responsorial Psalm 1 sm 2:1, 4-5, 6-7, 8abcd
R. (see 1a) My heart exults in the Lord, my Savior.
“My heart exults in the LORD,
my horn is exalted in my God.
I have swallowed up my enemies;
I rejoice in my victory.”
R. My heart exults in the Lord, my Savior.
“The bows of the mighty are broken,
while the tottering gird on strength.
The well-fed hire themselves out for bread,
while the hungry batten on spoil.
The barren wife bears seven sons,
while the mother of many languishes.”
R. My heart exults in the Lord, my Savior.
“The LORD puts to death and gives life;
he casts down to the nether world;
he raises up again.
The LORD makes poor and makes rich,
he humbles, he also exalts.”
R. My heart exults in the Lord, my Savior.
“He raises the needy from the dust;
from the dung heap he lifts up the poor,
To seat them with nobles
and make a glorious throne their heritage.”
R. My heart exults in the Lord, my Savior.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
O King of all nations and keystone of the Church;
come and save man, whom you formed from the dust!
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel lk 1:46-56
Mary said:“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my savior.
for he has looked upon his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
and has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children for ever.”
Mary remained with Elizabeth about three months
and then returned to her home.
The post Letting Our Soul and Spirit Burst in Praise and Thanksgiving, December 22, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
12 min
December 21, 2023Arising and Coming to Christ, December 21, 2023
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Mass for December 21
Memorial of St. Peter Canisius
December 21, 2023
Song 2:8-14, Ps 33, Lk 1:39-45

To listen to an audio recording of this homily, please click here:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.21.23_Homily_1.mp3

The following points were attempted in the homily:
There’s a great irony of proclaiming in today’s first reading from the Song of Songs, “The winter is past,” on the day winter begins, with the winter solstice occurring at 10:27 pm tonight on the East Coast. But it’s a good description of the faith and hope that pervades the season of Advent. Jesus is the Rising Sun — O Oriens we call him in the O Antiphons — and his light, eternal “Light from Light” shines in the midst of the greatest darkness and makes the darkest day of the year radiant.
We see this happen in the Gospel. Even though John the Baptist is in the darkness of Elizabeth’s womb, Jesus comes within the womb of Mary and irradiates that darkness with his light and joy. We see the same dynamism in the first reading, the Song of Songs, which is an allegory of the dramatic loving dialogue that’s supposed to happen between God and each one of our souls. Much more than a husband and wife who have been apart for a year run across airports to embrace each other, so our longing is meant to be even greater for God because his longing is greater for us. There’s darkness in separation, but the hope of reunion shines in the midst of that darkness, and when the encounter happens, the long night is forgotten.
Throughout Advent our desire is supposed to be growing like we see in the Song of Songs. The main purpose of the Advent wreath is to indicate what’s supposed to be happening within us: that week by week, the flame of our intense desire is meant to be doubling, tripling and quadrupling. And that’s what we see in the relationship between Bridegroom and Bride in this passage, which has inspired so many mystics, like St. Bernard, St. John of the Cross and St. Therese, to use it as a paradigm for the loving relationship we’re supposed to have with God. Jesus is coming as a Lover “springing across the mountains, leaping across the hills, … like a gazelle or a young stag.” He was doing that in the Gospel within Mary’s womb before he had even the tiniest of feet. He speaks, continually saying, “Arise, my beloved, my dove, my beautiful one and come!” He wants to see us, to hear our voice, to have us “sing a new song” (today’s Responsorial Psalm, literally the “song of the dove,” the song inspired by the Holy Spirit that we’re called to sing to our Emmanuel). This is the whole essence of Advent. Jesus is coming out of love for us because he seeks to espouse us to him forever. He’s coming because he loves us, because he finds us beautiful, and wants, by water and the word, to make us like a dove, “pure and immaculate in his sight” (Eph 5:25-27).
In our world, in our souls, the darkness that Christ wants to heal is wherever Christ doesn’t shine. St. John tells us in his Gospel about Jesus, “The light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil” (Jn 3:19). Jesus is coming into the world precisely to bring us into the light. That’s what Zechariah — in his famous Benedictus that the Church proclaims each morning and normally ponders especially on Christmas eve morning — will say about the One whose way his son will prepare: “Because of the tender mercy of our God by which the Daybreak (Oriens) from on high will visit us to shine on those who sit in darkness and death’s shadow, to guide our feet into the path of peace.” Jesus is coming to take those of us who are sitting in darkness and the shadow of death into the path of peace, joy and light. But he does so not by force but by engaging our freedom. He wants us to arise and come to him who is coming to us.
We all need that resurrection. Many Christians don’t live with the joy that comes from the light, like children enjoy a sunny day. John the Baptist comes to get us moving inwardly toward conversion, to recognize our darkness and our need for light. Christ comes to deliver that light. He comes to illumine even the shadow of death from the inside, by his own rising. He’s coming into the world so that, just as the light of the sun rises every morning, so we can rise with him. Just as Mary proclaims in her Magnificat that he exalts the humble, so he even raises the dead. Rather than looking like we’ve always come from a funeral, we Christians should look as if we’re perpetually come from a resurrection — and not just Jesus’, but our own. We all need to hear Jesus say, “Arise, my beloved, my pure one, my beautiful one, and come.”
Mary shows us how to live this type of life, to arise and go out to meet Christ in such a way that we begin to journey with him to bring his joy to others as he continues to bound over obstacles for the sake of his lost sheep. Mary is given to us as a special gift to help us to learn how to meet Christ in this way. I’ve always been moved, in pondering the mystery of the Visitation, by how the Holy Spirit fills St. Elizabeth and gets her to cry out, not “Who am I that my Lord, my Messiah, the eternal Son of God comes to me?,” but “Who am I that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?” Her awareness of the presence of her Lord was mediated through the one bringing Him to her. That same Mother seeks to bring to us that same Son to lead us to a similar joy in rising. And she prays for us to be transformed by that encounter so that when we go to others, they may be able to recognize the presence of the Lord within us, too, and get a glimpse of his light. This is something that the doctor of the Church we remember today, St. Peter Canisius, did among the Christians of Germany, Austria and elsewhere, helping to bring the light of Christ into the darkness caused by the sins that helped precipitate the Protestant Reformation and the light of the faith to the theological errors and schism of the Reformers. He was chosen by the Church for the life-risking mission to smuggle the decrees of the Council of Trent into Protestant territories, because the light of his holiness was something that Protestants too grasped: just as Elizabeth recognized not only the Lord but the mother of the Lord, so they saw not only the Lord but a true apostle. We thank the Lord for how St. Peter Canisius brought the light of the Lord — the light of his teaching through his famous Catechism, the warmth of his love through caring for so many of the sick, poor and plague victims, the brilliance of his presence in prayer — to re-evangelize Austria and Bavaria and we ask the Lord, through his and the Blessed Mother’s intercession to help us arise, as beloved of God, to come to Jesus and then to go with him into wherever we find the darkness so that he can illumine them and bring them to life.
The way Jesus tries to help us to enter in this mystery this every day is in the Mass, when we enter into his death so that together with him we can rise from the dead. The ancient Christian Churches were always built to the East with the cruciform or basilical churches built literally ad orientem (to the East), toward where the Sun rises, to symbolize how Christ rises from the dead and takes us with him. When the priest and people faced the East together, the people were able to experience Christ’s rising like the Sun in a very poignant way, when after the words of consecration, the priest would elevate the host above his head. The people would see him from behind lifting Jesus upward and holding him above so that the light of his presence might illumine our life. Today the same reality applies. After the consecration, as I have the humble but awesome privilege to raise Christ, the Rising Sun, to the highest point of which I’m capable, see the Sun at “high noon,” recognize that this is a response to all our Advent prayer, and then, arise, as his beloved, and come to him!

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1
SG 2:8-14
Hark! my lover–here he comes
springing across the mountains,
leaping across the hills.
My lover is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Here he stands behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattices.
My lover speaks; he says to me,
“Arise, my beloved, my dove, my beautiful one,
and come!
“For see, the winter is past,
the rains are over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of pruning the vines has come,
and the song of the dove is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,
and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance.
Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one,
and come!
“O my dove in the clefts of the rock,
in the secret recesses of the cliff,
Let me see you,
let me hear your voice,
For your voice is sweet,
and you are lovely.”
Responsorial Psalm
PS 33:2-3, 11-12, 20-21
R. (1a; 3a) Exult, you just, in the Lord! Sing to him a new song.
Give thanks to the LORD on the harp;
with the ten-stringed lyre chant his praises.
Sing to him a new song;
pluck the strings skillfully, with shouts of gladness.
R. Exult, you just, in the Lord! Sing to him a new song.
But the plan of the LORD stands forever;
the design of his heart, through all generations.
Blessed the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people he has chosen for his own inheritance.
R. Exult, you just, in the Lord! Sing to him a new song.
Our soul waits for the LORD,
who is our help and our shield,
For in him our hearts rejoice;
in his holy name we trust.
R. Exult, you just, in the Lord! Sing to him a new song.
Gospel
LK 1:39-45
Mary set out in those days
and traveled to the hill country in haste
to a town of Judah,
where she entered the house of Zechariah
and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,
the infant leaped in her womb,
and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit,
cried out in a loud voice and said,
“Most blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears,
the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed are you who believed
that what was spoken to you by the Lord
would be fulfilled.”
The post Arising and Coming to Christ, December 21, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
15 min
December 20, 2023Learning from Mary How to Respond to Christ’s Coming, December 20, 2023
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Mass for December 20
December 20, 2023
Is 7:10-14, Ps 24, Lk 1:26-38

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.20.23_Homily_1.mp3

The following points were attempted in the homily:
“Let the Lord enter! He is the King of Glory!,” we proclaimed four times in the refrain of the Responsorial Psalm. All of Advent is geared to getting us to cooperate with God, to open wide the gates for him, to make straight the paths for him to come and to use those paths to run out to meet him, greet him, be transformed by him and follow him. In today’s readings, we have a huge contrast between those who let the Lord enter and those who don’t. They help us to learn how to cooperate with what the King of Glory wants to do in us this Advent and Christmas.
In the first reading, we see how not to respond to the Lord’s coming, how to refuse him entrance. King Ahaz, David’s 8th generation grandson, was King of Judah for 16 years about 720 years before Christ. Judah was under threat from the northern Kingdom of Israel under Pekah and the Syrians under Rezin. They wanted him to join in an alliance against the powerful Assyrian kingdom under Tiglath-Pileser III. Ahaz was just 18 years old and afraid. He was planning to form an alliance with the Assyrians against the two other kings, something that would prove disastrous for Judah, and so God sent Isaiah to him to guide him. The problem was that Ahaz didn’t want to follow Isaiah’s advice because he preferred to follow the counsel of his political advisors and the false prophets who told him what he wanted to hear rather than what God was perhaps counter-intuitively advising through his true prophet. Even when Isaiah came to guarantee that the Lord would help and save them, Ahaz didn’t want to have anything to do with it. So the Lord told him through Isaiah, “Ask for a sign from the Lord, your God; let it be deep as the nether world, or high as the sky!” When God had asked Ahaz’s ancestor Solomon — at the identical age of 18! — the same question, Solomon asked for a prudent heart to judge things according to God’s wisdom. Ahaz feigned piety, saying, “I will not ask! I will not tempt the Lord!” The reason why he didn’t want a sign was because once the sign was given, it would, in a sense, bind him to the truth, bind him to something other than what he was already intending to do. So God through Isaiah told him what sign he would give: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.” The sign would be God-with-us, a sign that would be fulfilled in so many ways through God’s presence, including through his righteous son Hezekiah, but most especially in Jesus would would literally be God-with-us. Isaiah explained how wearisome it must be for God when God wants to give us all the help we need, but we refuse. “Listen, O house of David! Is it not enough for you to weary men, must you also weary my God?”
The one who shows us how to respond to God’s offer of help, of liberation, of peace, is the Blessed Virgin Mary. When the Archangel Gabriel came to her, she manifested how those who are full of grace, who are with the Lord who is with us, respond to God. She first asked a question about whether God was asking her to change what she had previously thought he had requested in order to fulfill his will. That’s what her query means, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” The only way that this question makes sense is if Mary had already totally consecrated herself as a virgin to God, because if she hadn’t, then she would have well known how she would conceive and bear a son: it would have been through conjugal relations with her betrothed husband, St. Joseph. She had already responded to God’s light in her previous consecration but she was humbly open to being led further in the light of God’s plan if that’s what God was asking of her. After being told that she would conceive Jesus — a name which means “God saves,” God liberates, God opens up the door of our prisons — miraculously by the power of the Holy Spirit, she luminously replied, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” She shows us very clearly how to respond to God, by placing ourselves at his service, by allowing our whole lives to develop in accordance with this word.
Mary enfleshes the three virtues that we read about in today’s beautiful responsorial psalm. When asked, “Who can ascend the mountain of the Lord or who may stand in his holy place?,” the Psalm responds, “He whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean, who desires not what is vain.” To respond appropriate to God, to open wide the gates for him and let him enter, involves three things: desires, intentions and deeds. We first need to desire not what is vain, fleeting, worthless, but to desire what lasts, what is truly important; we need to long for God! Second, our heart must be pure, not filled with sin and egocentrism. Third, our hands must be clean; we must not take bribes, we must not use our hands to steal, to abuse others, but use them for deeds of love and fold them in prayer. Mary desired what God desires, wanting her whole life to develop according to his word, rejoicing and magnifying him. Her heart was pure, seeing God in ordinary circumstances; it was contemplative, treasuring all his gifts, pondering them within. And her deeds were those of love, placing herself as the Lord’s handmaid in his service, and eventually holding the Son of God in her hands and helping to raise him with maternal love. Mary wants to help us learn how to let the King of Glory enter into our thoughts, desires and actions, too.
“Ask for a sign from the Lord, your God; let it be deep as the nether world, or high as the sky!” If we had been given this opportunity as King Ahaz was, even if Mary with her sinless hands, clean heart and holy desires had been given this possibility, none of us would have ever dreamed of asking God to send his own Son into our world, to take on our own nature, to be born for us, to be God-with-us, to set us free by suffering, and to leave himself as our food under the appearance of bread and wine until the end of time. But, as St. John Vianney used to marvel, what we never would have dreamed, God himself has done! Today let us prepare to receive the Son of the Most High, God saves, the eternal ruler of Jacob’s house, by the power of the Holy Spirit overshadowing the priest, altar and bread and wine. Let us open wide the gates to receive the King of Glory and then, like Mary, with sinless desires, pure hearts and holy deeds, let our lives develop according to God’s word.

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 is 7:10-14
The LORD spoke to Ahaz:
Ask for a sign from the LORD, your God;
let it be deep as the nether world, or high as the sky!
But Ahaz answered,
“I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!”
Then Isaiah said:
Listen, O house of David!
Is it not enough for you to weary men,
must you also weary my God?
Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel.
Responsorial Psalm ps 24:1-2, 3-4ab, 5-6
R. (see 7c and 10b) Let the Lord enter; he is the king of glory.
The LORD’s are the earth and its fullness;
the world and those who dwell in it.
For he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the rivers.
R. Let the Lord enter; he is the king of glory.
Who can ascend the mountain of the LORD?
or who may stand in his holy place?
He whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean,
who desires not what is vain.
R. Let the Lord enter; he is the king of glory.
He shall receive a blessing from the LORD,
a reward from God his savior.
Such is the race that seeks for him,
that seeks the face of the God of Jacob.
R. Let the Lord enter; he is the king of glory.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
O Key of David,
opening the gates of God’s eternal Kingdom:
come and free the prisoners of darkness!
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel lk 1:26-38
In the sixth month,
the angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of David,
and the virgin’s name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said,
“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”
But she was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her,
“Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his Kingdom there will be no end.”
But Mary said to the angel,
“How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?”
And the angel said to her in reply,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, Elizabeth, your relative,
has also conceived a son in her old age,
and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;
for nothing will be impossible for God.”
Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”
Then the angel departed from her.
The post Learning from Mary How to Respond to Christ’s Coming, December 20, 2023 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.