Catholic Preaching

Catholic Preaching

By Father Roger LandryReligion & SpiritualityChristianity
Download on the App Store

Catholic Preaching episodes

  • Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (A), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, November 11, 2023

    Fr. Roger J. Landry

    Conversations with Consequences Podcast
    Homily for the Thirty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, A, Vigil
    November 11, 2023

     

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

    https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.11.23_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

     

    The following text guided the homily: 

    • This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday as he teaches us about the yearning he wants us to have for him and his kingdom, in this world and forever.
    • He does so by using an image about wedding customs that might seem a little confusing and strange to us. The details, however, would have been very well understood by his contemporaries. There were two main stages in a marriage. The first would be the exchange of vows. When this took place, the bride and groom were contractually married, but they would continue to live apart, for a year or more, while the husband worked to pay for and prepare a new home to welcome his wife and begin their common life as well as to pay for the wedding reception they would eventually host there. The second stage took place after all of that work was done. The husband would come to the bride’s house to pick her up and take her to their new abode for the wedding reception. He would send out some of his groomsmen with word that the bridegroom was coming, meaning that he could arrive within hours, days, or up to a week. He would be accompanied by all the guests from his side and meet his wife with all the guests from her side. Both groups would then process as one to their new home and when they arrived, instead of a one-day celebration and then leaving for someplace else for a honeymoon, they would celebrate the nuptials for eight days with all their friends and family.
      • In order to cut down on the number of guests one would need to feed for eight days, the bridegroom sometimes would come in the middle of the night. By custom, those who weren’t ready when he came lost their spots. As soon as the bridegroom took his bride into their house, the doors would be shut, to prevent latecomers crashing their party. This wedding tradition, which was universal at Jesus’ time, is still found today in certain parts of the Holy Land and Middle East. The drama of the parable is that the bridegroom indeed comes at night but only five of the ten bridesmaids are ready with oil in their lamps to await him; the other five were unprepared, sought to borrow some, had to go to buy some, missed the bridegroom’s arrival and then were therefore shut out of the reception.
      • Jesus used this image as the background to communicate to us how we should be living for and in his kingdom, preparing for his return as Bridegroom at the end of our life or at the end of the world, whichever comes first. Jesus contrasts five wise bridesmaids versus five foolish ones, wanting us to imitate the lessons we see in the five wise ones. November is the month in which the whole Church reflects on the four last things — death, judgment, heaven and hell — and Jesus by this image tries to help us prepare well for the first two, so that we may experience the third and avoid the fourth. But for this to happen, we need to learn three crucial lessons from the wise virgins.
      • The first lesson is vigilancefor the Bridegroom’s coming. The heralds have already gone out to announce that Jesus is coming. We need to be ready to go with him whenever he arrives. Death, for a Christian, is not meant to be a scary thing. It’s the time when Jesus the Bridegroom comes for us to take us to His home when we will celebrate with him forever. We’re called to await him with eager longing, with great expectation. He wants the lamps of our hearts burning for him, full of the oil of love. The best way for us to stay alert for the return of the Bridegroom is for us to be ready, with hearts burning with love, for the presence of the Bridegroom now. The more we long for Jesus in the Eucharist, the more we attentively listen to his Word in Sacred Scripture, the more we seek to recognize him in the persons and events of each day, and love and embrace them as we would love and embrace Christ, the more ready we will be to embrace Christ when he appears without disguise.
      • The second thing Jesus teaches us in the image of the ten bridesmaids is that there are certain things we cannot borrow. Just as the unwise virgins didn’t have enough oil for their own lamps — and oil stands for expectant love for the Lord — so we can’t borrow anyone else’s faith, hope or love. We need to have our own, otherwise we’ll be caught unready and be left outside. One of my favorite authors, Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, now Trappist Father Symeon of Spencer Abbey, describes in his classic commentary on St. Matthew’s Gospel, Fire of Mercy, that the “foolish virgins are foolish not only because they neglected to bring their own supply of oil with them to the momentous encounter with the Bridegroom, but also because they possess a naïve and perhaps even subtly manipulative and self-indulgent view of the society to which they belong. They are spiritual freeloaders. They simply assume that they do not have to work for their own oil, that in a pinch, anyone’s oil will burn just as nicely in their own lamps, that they should not strain themselves too much because there are many others … who will gladly do their work for them and that they, therefore, can relax in an attitude of entitlement and allow others to fill in the gap for them.” In other words, they fail in their own responsibility, to prioritize their own personal relationship with the Bridegroom. We can’t borrow another’s relationship with the Lord, another’s faith or hope, another’s soul or spiritual life. None of us can say for another, “Jesus, I love you, too” or “Forgive me,” or “Help me.” For those who are faithful to Christ, there’s a lesson here, too, that there are certain things we cannot lend or give even to those we love. They must assume responsibility for developing an eager, expectant, vigilant faithful love for God on their own. Those who think that they can borrow others’ relationships with the Lord when the Lord comes are indeed foolish, as Jesus says about the unwise bridesmaids.
      • The third lesson is that there is a time that can be too late.Certain things cannot be obtained at the last minute. In the parable, the unwise virgins were caught off guard. They couldn’t borrow oil, so they had to try to obtain some on their own, but they missed the bridegroom and were locked out. They knocked on the door saying, “Lord, Lord, open to us.” But then he replied with the words that I think are the saddest and scariest in all of Sacred Scripture: “Truly, I tell you, I do not know you.” For the Lord to know us, for us to be on time for the wedding banquet, we have to spend our time here getting to know him intimately, as a friend, as a savior, as our God. Many of us often put off the most important thing in the life, which is to make God first in our life. We allow the devil to deceive us by saying, “There’s always time,” to insinuate that we can live like the Good Thief, do our own thing, and that the Lord will give us the chance at the end to say one prayer so that everything will work out. Jesus tells those who would imitate the foolish bridesmaids in this way, however, that there will be a time when there will be no time left, when the door will be shut. Now is the time for us to get to know the Lord in prayer, in the sacramental life, in the moral life of love, so that he will never say, “I don’t know you.” Now is the time for us to prepare for his return. All of us have known people who have died unexpectedly, even young people. The moral he gives at the end of today’s parable is crystal clear: “Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” To be awake means never to be asleep to God, but always to be alert, full of love, waiting for his return.
      • Three lessons: an eager, expectant waiting for the Lord’s coming in all his ways; a recognition that we can’t borrow what we’re going to need to meet the Lord when we comes; and a loving admonition from the Lord not to procrastinate on our preparations until it’s too late. Every Mass is meant to help us with each of the three. If we’re truly ready to meet the Lord each week at Mass, with our souls clean from serious sins, with our hearts hungering for Him, with the Lord himself, the Light of the World, burning inside of us fueled by the oil of love, then we’ll never be caught off guard, whether he comes today, tomorrow, or decades years from now. Each Catholic Church proclaims every day, “The Bridegroom is here. Let us go out to meet Christ the Lord!” And the wise are those who do.

        •  

        The Gospel passage on which the homily was based was: 

        Gospel
        Mt 25:1-13
        Jesus told his disciples this parable:
        “The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins
        who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.
        Five of them were foolish and five were wise.
        The foolish ones, when taking their lamps,
        brought no oil with them,
        but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps.
        Since the bridegroom was long delayed,
        they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
        At midnight, there was a cry,
        ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’
        Then all those virgins got up and trimmed their lamps.
        The foolish ones said to the wise,
        ‘Give us some of your oil,
        for our lamps are going out.’
        But the wise ones replied,
        ‘No, for there may not be enough for us and you.
        Go instead to the merchants and buy some for yourselves.’
        While they went off to buy it,
        the bridegroom came
        and those who were ready went into the wedding feast with him.
        Then the door was locked.
        Afterwards the other virgins came and said,
        ‘Lord, Lord, open the door for us!’
        But he said in reply,
        ‘Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.’
        Therefore, stay awake,
        for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

        The post Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (A), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, November 11, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

        9 min
      • Finishing the Gospel of Christ by Becoming Prudent Children of Light, 31st Friday (I), November 10, 2023

        Fr. Roger J. Landry

        Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
        Friday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
        Memorial of St. Leo the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church
        November 10, 2023
        Rom 15:14-21, Ps 98, Lk 16:1-8

         

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

        https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.10.23_Homily_1.mp3

         

        The following points were attempted:

        • Throughout this month of November, we ponder more deeply what we celebrated during the first two days of this month: the last things, that we will die, be judged, and eventually end up for eternity in one of two places, and that we are called and helped by God to end up in an eternal communion with him by means of his mercy and through saying yes to him in a life of sanctity. Today we are able to continue to meditate on the realities we celebrate on All Saints and All Souls Days.
        • Our passage from St. Luke’s Gospel is meant to help us to prepare for our judgment by inspiring us toward a life of sanctity, if not for the right reasons — out of love for God — minimally out of eternal self-love and -interest. Jesus stresses in a brutal, cutthroat, bottom-line manner what we need to do and does so by means of what for many Catholics is the most confusing parable in the Gospel, what’s popularly called the Parable of the Dishonest Steward, something that can get some people to wonder whether Truth incarnate is praising a crooked business manager for wily deception, whether he who gave us the commandment “Thou shalt not steal” is himself praising someone for violating it. But Jesus was doing no such thing. In order to grasp what Jesus was and was not saying and what the crucial lesson is for us, however, we first need to understand better the literal sense of this passage through knowing something about the way loans were done in the ancient world.
        • In the Parable, a manager is about to get sacked because he was squandering the property of his business owner. His boss gave him his pink slip and told him to do an audit of the books prior to his dismissal. So the man called in those mostly tenant farmers who owed his employer money or items and reduced their debts considerably. At first glance, this seems like dishonesty, like he was allowing these debtors to steal from his boss, but it wasn’t. In the ancient world, the way loans were conducted was that the manager or broker would be paid by adding on something to what was borrowed, rather than by taking a percentage out of the master’s proceeds. For example, if someone borrowed 50 denarii or 50 barrels of oil, he would have to pay back the 50 to the master and another 10 — or 30 or 50 — to the broker, whatever the broker thought he could get. This dishonest steward was probably tacking on way too big of a commission, and, in order to maximize his profits, was probably, like Fannie and Freddie earlier this century, lending out the master’s property to bad risks, allowing people on the Master’s fields who were going to waste it rather than produce. Hence, when the manager called in those who owed, for example, 100 containers of wheat, and reduced the amount to 80, what he was almost assuredly doing was eliminating most or all of his commission. Therefore, he wasn’t really allowing them to steal from the owner; he was eliminating his own take. Faced with the decision of saving his life by making friends with those who would take care of him after he was fired or trying to hold out to the end onto the possibility of making money via these commissions, he chose to save his life. His master — and Jesus through the master in the Parable — calls this prudent and wise.
        • What’s the application to us? Jesus wants us to examine whether we are in the place of that dishonest steward. God has given each of us tremendous gifts. He has given us our hands, which we use to work. He has given us our brains, which we use to think. He has given us our families and friends, our education, our lives, and so many other blessings. With these gifts, we have profited and made a manifold commission in life already. But have we been using those gifts fundamentally to build up our kingdom or to build up the Master’s? If we’ve been squandering his gifts on ourselves or the things of this world, Jesus gives us this parable in order to help us to see that our time is coming to an end and that we need to prepare an accounting. He wants us, like the steward in the Gospel, to start to sacrifice our “commissions,” our possessions, our time, our lives for others so that we might be taken care of in return — so that they may remember us, and then be our supporters and welcome us into, as Jesus says, “eternal homes.” The implication is that if we don’t want to do the right thing simply because it is right, if we don’t want to love others because we’re Christian and have good heart, then at least we should do it because it is in our eternal best interest. Like the steward in the parable, we are faced with the choice between trying to keep our profits and trying to save our life. We cannot take money or possessions with us as we go. The only thing that fits through the “eye of the needle” (Lk 18:25) are acts of love. All earthly mammon will eventually turn out to be no more valuable than monopoly money. Jesus wants us to be as wise in the spiritual realm as sage businessmen are in the material realm. If we use whatever God has given us in this world to take care of others, at our judgment and after it, they will be among those in heaven who welcome us into the eternal home of heaven. Jesus will turn to us and tell us that whatever we did for them, he took personally: “Whatever you did for the least of my brothers and sisters, you did for me” (Mt 25:40).
        • Jesus says immediately after today’s Gospel that the “children of this age” are shrewder in dealing with their own generation than “the children of light.” What he was saying is that people who are worldly are often much more “prudent” than believers when it comes to making choices that concern their survival. Business owners, if they know that a certain practice is losing them money, try to fix it right away. If they can’t, they eliminate it. They know that in order to survive, they’ve got to cut their losses, otherwise they’ll end up in chapter 11. Christians, however, when we know that a certain thing is losing us God’s grace, seldom act in such a decisive and intelligent way. Even though such a serious sin might send us into eternal bankruptcy, we often don’t get rid of it. Jesus instructs us to act with bottom-line brutality in the Sermon on the Mount, but few of us follow this advice: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell” (Mt 5:29-30). The failure to cut out sinful behavior from our life is, for Jesus, simply stupid. Sinning in such a way is cooperating with the devil, and that would be like a businessman’s employing someone whom he knows will steal from him and try to destroy his business.
        • In this story, Jesus is essentially telling us to use our heads, to be smart about our salvation. Jesus’ words today are like a top notch group of business consultants who come in to analyze a failing business, find out where the inefficiencies are and design a business plan not only to save the company but make it thrive; but the key is not just in the information, in knowing what needs to be done, but in having the wisdom, courage and resolve to implement that plan. That’s what Jesus is proposing to us today, with urgency. Unlike in the parable, when we meet him face-to-face, we’ll have no time to return to try to fix things. We have to fix them now. If we’ve been selfish with our gifts, if we haven’t been putting God first, if we have been neglecting those left in ditches on the side of the road, the time is now to use our heads to do so. If we’ve been compromising with a sin, with something that is obviously wrong but which we’re trying to deny, the time is now to change. Now is the time for us to be as shrewd about storing up for ourselves heavenly wealth as millionaires are to increase their fortunes. We cannot serve both God and mammon. We cannot worship God and the Golden Calf. We cannot be sons and daughters of the eternal Father and seek the inheritance offered by the prince of the world. Just as the steward in the parable couldn’t try to keep all his commissions and win the favor of those who owed him, so we must choose between storing up treasure and pleasure in this world, or using what we have in this world to store up eternal treasure and happiness in the next. This is a choice the Rich Young Man was presented by Jesus and sadly refused to take. Today Jesus out of love offers us the same deal urging us to seize it and obtain the pearl of great price.
        • We have two examples today of those who lived as honest stewards and children of the light and who sought to help the whole Church do the same. In the first reading, we see St. Paul begin to wrap up his Epistle to the Romans. He tells them that he was written to them “rather boldly in some respects to remind” them of what Christ himself has entrusted to them, to lead them “to obedience” to what God has asked. He says, “I have finished preaching the Gospel of Christ,” which doesn’t mean he was never going to do it again, but that he has shared the whole Gospel with them: now it was for them to live it. Now it is time for them to live justified by grace received through faith and expressed through love. Now is the time to live according to the Holy Spirit, knowing that God makes everything work for the good and nothing can separate us from him. Now is the time to offer their bodies and whole lives as a holy and acceptable sacrifice to God, our fitting worship. Now is the time to love sincerely and with affection. Now is the time to recognize that all that God has given us is meant to be used for our and other’s salvation, for the building up of God’s kingdom. St. Paul made himself all things to all people and was a steward of everything given. He even used his imprisonment to write letters, like this great Epistle. His example inspires us.
        • The second standout example we have today is St. Leo the Great, on whose tomb at St. Peter’s in the Vatican I have had the privilege to celebrate Mass so many times early in my priesthood. He was a good steward and used everything God gave him for the Lord’s kingdom. He was gifted with extraordinary eloquence — he and Cicero are the two greats in Latin history — and used it for the Lord, writing extraordinary poetry to adorn the Churches and then sermons, letters and theological treatises thereafter. During my pre-theology years I had read a few of his sermons on Christ’s incarnation and they moved me so much that I ended up gradually reading most of his 96 extant homilies and 143 letters. He was a great custodian of the liturgy, seen at the Lateran baptistery he rebuilt as Archdeacon of his predecessor, Pope St. Sixtus III, the imagery of the triumphal arch of St. Paul’s outside the walls, or the salvation history focused on Joshua found in the mosaics he had commissioned for the Basilica of St. Mary Major after the Council of Ephesus. He considered himself responsible before God for his people and courageously confronted Attila the Hun in 452 and diverted Attila from his plans to pillage Rome the same way he and his armies had despoiled so many other cities in northern Italy. He passionately defended the faith against the heresies of Arianism, Pelagianism, Manichaeism, Priscillianism, Nestorianism and Eutychism and sought the unity for which Christ prayed during the Last Supper. On the theme of stewardship, there’s a mystical experience he had that is important for us to ponder in this month of November with today’s reading as a backdrop. At some point early in his papacy, as he thought about the weight of the office, he began to become somewhat frightened about all of his mistakes, failings, and sins. He prayed for 40 days to the Lord at the tomb of his predecessor St. Peter begging the Lord for mercy. At the end of the lengthy novena, St. Peter appeared to him in a vision and said that the Lord would be very merciful to him, except those sins “committed by you in conferring holy orders: of these you still remain charged to give a rigorous account.” The experience deeply affected Leo and always left him with a sense of his duties to assure the worthiness of any priest or bishop on whom he would lay hands. He would even lay down a rule for the primitive canon law of the time “not to lay hands upon any one suddenly, according to the precept of the apostle, [and] not to raise to the honor of the priesthood any who have not been thoroughly tried, or before a mature age, a competent time of trial, the merit of labor in the service of the church, and sufficient proofs given of their obedience to rule, their love of discipline and zeal for its observance.” The Lord wanted bishops as the Church’s servant leaders to be wiser than children of the light. And if Christ held his priests to those standards, then he would give them everything they needed to live up to them. We, therefore, should not be frightened about our call, but, with confidence in our vocation, live it to the full as shrewd children of light.
        • The Lord who calls us to be true children of the light is indeed prepared to give us all the help he knows we need to do so. He is about to feed us with himself, the greatest treasure in the world. As we prepare to receive him, we ask him to finish or perfect the Gospel in us, so that we might give others, like Paul, the Gospel together with our very selves, and live in such a way that when the time comes for us to render an account of all the blessings of life he has given us, he may praise us eternally for acting shrewdly and, together with all those we’ve helped through sharing God’s generosity as good and faithful stewards, we may be welcomed by him into his eternal home!

          •  

          These were the readings for today’s Mass: 

          Reading 1 ROM 15:14-21
          I myself am convinced about you, my brothers and sisters,
          that you yourselves are full of goodness,
          filled with all knowledge, and able to admonish one another.
          But I have written to you rather boldly in some respects to remind you,
          because of the grace given me by God
          to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles
          in performing the priestly service of the Gospel of God,
          so that the offering up of the Gentiles may be acceptable,
          sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
          In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast in what pertains to God.
          For I will not dare to speak of anything
          except what Christ has accomplished through me
          to lead the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed,
          by the power of signs and wonders,
          by the power of the Spirit of God,
          so that from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum
          I have finished preaching the Gospel of Christ.
          Thus I aspire to proclaim the Gospel
          not where Christ has already been named,
          so that I do not build on another’s foundation,
          but as it is written:
          Those who have never been told of him shall see,
          and those who have never heard of him shall understand.
          Responsorial Psalm PS 98:1, 2-3AB, 3CD-4
          R. (see 2b) The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.
          Sing to the LORD a new song,
          for he has done wondrous deeds;
          His right hand has won victory for him,
          his holy arm.
          R. The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.
          The LORD has made his salvation known:
          in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.
          He has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness
          toward the house of Israel.
          R. The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.
          All the ends of the earth have seen
          the salvation by our God.
          Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;
          break into song; sing praise.
          R. The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.

          Alleluia 1 JN 2:5

          R. Alleluia, alleluia.

          Whoever keeps the word of Christ,
          the love of God is truly perfected in him.
          R. Alleluia, alleluia.

          Gospel LK 16:1-8
          Jesus said to his disciples, “A rich man had a steward
          who was reported to him for squandering his property.
          He summoned him and said,
          ‘What is this I hear about you?
          Prepare a full account of your stewardship,
          because you can no longer be my steward.’
          The steward said to himself, ‘What shall I do,
          now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me?
          I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg.
          I know what I shall do so that,
          when I am removed from the stewardship,
          they may welcome me into their homes.’
          He called in his master’s debtors one by one.
          To the first he said, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
          He replied, ‘One hundred measures of olive oil.’
          He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note.
          Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.’
          Then to another he said, ‘And you, how much do you owe?’
          He replied, ‘One hundred measures of wheat.’
          He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note;
          write one for eighty.’
          And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.
          For the children of this world
          are more prudent in dealing with their own generation
          than the children of light.”

          The post Finishing the Gospel of Christ by Becoming Prudent Children of Light, 31st Friday (I), November 10, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

          19 min
        • The Rededication of the Church, Feast of the Dedication of the Archbasilica of St. John in the Lateran, November 9, 2023

          Fr. Roger J. Landry

          Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
          Feast of the Dedication of the Archbasilica of St. John in the Lateran
          November 9, 2023
          Ezek 47:1-2.8-9.12, Ps 46, 1 Cor 3:9-11.16-17, Jn 2:13-22

           

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

          https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.9.23_Homily_1.mp3

           

          The following text guided the homily: 

          • “The most holy Church of the Lateran, the mother and head of all the churches of the city and the world!” These words, in Latin, greet every pilgrim entering through the front door of the Archbasilica of St. John in the Lateran in Rome and clearly proclaim the Lateran’s significance in Christianity.  We call the Lateran the mother of every church edifice because it was the first legalized Christian Church in history. It is the head, because Rome is the principal Church of the principal local Church in the world, the Diocese of Rome, the see of St. Peter, the vicar on earth of the Head of the Mystical Body.  The Lateran, not St. Peter’s, is the Pope’s Cathedral, where his cathedra, the chair symbolic of his teaching authority, rests. The Lateran, not the Vatican, is where the Popes resided for the first millennium of legalized Christianity (324-1308). This is the reason why on November 9 every year not just the Diocese of Rome but the whole Roman Catholic Church celebrate the feast of the dedication of their Head and Mother. “With this feast,” Pope Francis said a few years ago in an Angelus meditation, “we profess, in the unity of the faith, the bond of communion that all the local Churches, spread throughout the earth, has with the Church of Rome and with its Bishop, the successor to Peter.” St. John Lateran is, we can loosely say, the Cathedral of the world.
          • The history of the Lateran symbolizes, in many ways, the history of the Church for which she is its liturgical mother and head. The Lateran Archbasilica is a fitting symbol for the Church that as theologians say is semper reformanda or always in need of reform. Over the centuries, the Lateran has been multiply pillaged by vandals, three times decimated by fire, toppled by an earthquake, and neglected by the Popes and faithful sometimes for decades. After every deformation, however, the Lateran rose again, continuing to proclaim to the city and the world the Church’s faith, through the words of the popes and five ecumenical councils held there, and through the language of its art and architecture. It’s therefore a sign of hope for the Church in every age and place.
          • That perpetual reform is also depicted in its name. The true and original name of the Basilica is “Christ the Savior,” which is emblazoned on the front of the Basilica’s façade. Every reshaping in Church history happens when Christians return to Christ and to the salvation he came to bring into the world. When Pope Sergius III rebuilt the Basilica after a 9th century earthquake, he rededicated it to the Savior through the intercession of St. John the Baptist, because, symbolically, we needed to hear once more St. John the Baptist’s summons to conversion, to make straight the paths for Christ, to level the mountains of our pride, and fill up the valleys of a shallow spiritual life, so that we could encounter Christ. Pope Lucius II (1144-1145) added the intercession of St. John the Evangelist to the dedication as a means to remind of what St. John wrote in his Gospel, that “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” The rebuilding of the Church always involves living more fully with the Lord who came to live with us. (The name Lateran comes from the Roman Senatorial family of Plautus Lateranus who at the time SS. Peter and Paul lived in Rome owned a vast farm in the area the Lateran now occupies.)
          • Perhaps the greatest way the Lateran basilica symbolizes the ever present need for reform in the Church is, however, depicted in a statue across the Square and main thoroughfare in front of its façade. There’s a huge bronze sculpture of what looks to be a monk with a hood on his head and arms upraised. It’s a statute of St. Francis of Assisi. The statue evokes a dream that Pope Innocent III had in 1209 of a man in a simple pauper’s woolen habit with a rope for a belt holding up the collapsing basilica. The following day the friar in his dream appeared before him, along with some similarly clad spiritual brothers, asking for approval of the rule to govern the religious order the friar was hoping to found. Pope Innocent’s dream was a confirmation of what the Lord Jesus himself had said to the young Giovanni “Francis” Bernardone a couple of years earlier from the crucifix in the collapsing chapel of St. Damian on the slopes of Assisi: “Francis, rebuild my Church, which you can see is falling into ruin.” Francis took that command literally, went to his father’s clothing store, took some valuable fabrics and sold them along with the horse in order to start repairing the Church. Over the course of the next year, he finished the job. But little did St. Francis know that he had misinterpreted the Lord and that the Lord had another, much more monumental, rebuilding project in mind. It started with Francis himself, who responded to God’s grace to follow the Lord Jesus completely, uniting himself to the poor, chaste, and obedient Lord by means of the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience. Soon, many others joined Francis in this pursuit. But the reconstruction extended far beyond them. Francis’ mission was to help bring the Church back to her foundations so that she could be rebuilt stone by stone on the foundation of Christ.
          • Peter gave the Church’s architectural plans in his first letter, which we pondered this morning in the Office of Readings: “Come to [Christ], a living stone, rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Jesus Christ himself is the foundation of the Church, the cornerstone. The Church is the spiritual house built of living stones on this foundation. And these living stones are those who build their whole life on Christ. The Hebrew word for holy is qadosh, which means “heavy” or “solid.” The saints are those who are solidly built on Christ. The Church is made of men not marble, of women not wood, of boys not bricks, of girls not glass. To celebrate the Feast of the Lateran is to recommit ourselves as living stones, building our existence on Christ.
          • The readings of today’s Mass help us to ponder this personal and ecclesial rebuilding project. In the Gospel, we see Jesus’ zeal for his Father’s house, a zeal that is similarly supposed to consume each disciple. He declares that his Father’s house is meant to be a house of prayer not a den of thieves and sin. He overturned tables and formed a cord to drive out whatever was unfit, whatever was not holy and consecrated to God and his service. We began this Mass asking the same Lord to have mercy on us and drive out from within us whatever is unfit. Those shocked at what he was doing in the Temple asked him to give a sign of his authority to clean the temple. He replied, cryptically, “Destroy this temple and in three days rebuild it,” something that St. John tells us he was speaking of his body, which would be destroyed on Good Friday but rebuilt, gloriously, on Easter Sunday. Jesus is the true temple!
          • Jesus’ ultimate plan is to make us, individually and together in communion with each other, part of that temple through uniting us totally with him. The temple is God’s dwelling place. Jesus, God-with-us, wants to be with us not just on the outside but on the inside. The Word made flesh wants to dwell not just “among” us but “within” us. That’s the shocking reality to which St. Paul points in today’s second reading: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? … The temple of God, which you are, is holy.” St. Paul calls the Corinthians and all of us to remember who we are as God’s dwelling place and to live a life of union with God. God’s plan is for us to become a true tabernacle of God, just as much as the Blessed Virgin Mary was as she carried within her for nine months her embryonic Savior.
          • That reality of becoming a Temple of God’s holy presence happens through baptism, when we, like a Church, are consecrated to be a place where God dwells, is worshipped, loved, and treasured, where the Word of God resonates, where sacrifices of praise are made to God and from which sacrifices for others are launched. But the temple we become is not meant to be a static reality. We’re supposed to be constantly growing, constantly reforming, constantly rebuilding, constantly being more fittingly adorned as a temple of God’s presence. This is alluded to in today’s first reading from the Prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel sees a vision of water trickling from the eastern side of the Temple down toward the Arabah, the sandy 20 mile desert that separates Jerusalem from the Dead Sea. The Angel takes Ezekiel another 1000 cubits (about 500 yards since a cubit is the distance between the elbow and the top of the middle finger, about 18 inches for those of us who aren’t in the NBA) and the water is now ankle deep; another 500 yards and it’s knee deep; yet another 500 and it’s up to his waist; a final 500 and it had become a river over his head so that he could only swim across it. And along its path, it brought all types of life to the desert as it flowed into the Dead Sea — where no marine life can survive because it’s 20 times the salinity of the ocean — and raised that body of water literally from the dead, making it fresh and allowing all types of fish to live in it again. This is an image of the Christian life of the baptized. On the day of our baptism we receive a trickle of the Living Water flowing from the true Temple’s — Jesus’ — pierced Eastern side, the font of sacramental life for the Church. But we’re to journey more deeply with that living water. By the time we’re able to communicate with others and with God in prayer, this living water should be up to our ankles. By the time of we’re ready to receive Jesus in Holy Communion, it should be up to our knees, so that we can kneel in adoration of the One we’re about to receive. At the age of Confirmation, it should be up to our chaste waists. By the time we’re adults, we should be submerging ourselves in it and allowing that river of Living Water to direct us to wherever he wants us to bring vitality even in the midst of the deserts of life. The Living Water who is Jesus wants to raise from the dead whatever Dead Seas we bear inside, converting what is salty and bitter into something fresh and alive. This living water is the source of all true reform. This is the reality we sang of in today’s Responsorial Psalm. “The waters of the river gladden the city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High!” Jesus is that flowing river of reform and of joy!
          • Let’s draw three obvious consequences from the reality we celebrate today, how this feast of the Dedication of the Archbasilica of St. John in the Lateran is meant to be the occasion of our rededication, our renewed consecration, to God as a temple of his Holy Presence.
            • The first consequence concerns the great joy  we should have that God has chosen to come to dwell within us. The living water flowing from Jesus’ side is meant to gladden us. It is a mind-blowing reality that God himself comes to dwell within us. He comes to live in us, to make his home with us, to strengthen us, to help us, to fill us with his joy and make our joy complete. This reality changes bad days into happy days, changes darkness into light, suffering into deeper union, even death into life. When I’m having a bad day, when something hasn’t gone the way I would have liked, one of my habits is to just look at whatever I’m facing from the perspective of what my attitude would have been if I knew that today was the day Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus’ resurrection changes everything and the reality of our being made temples is that the risen Jesus together with the Father and the Holy Spirit come to live within us. How can we, like Mary, not burst out in a Magnificat at how the Lord makes possible for our souls to magnify him within and our spirits and bodies to rejoice in the presence of God our savior?
            • The second consequence is to make sure God is always a welcome guest, to keep the temple of our body and soul pure and clean and fitting house of worship for him. In today’s Gospel, we see what Jesus does in the Temple of Jerusalem in whipping the money changers and animal sellers from the temple, because his Father’s house was supposed to be a holy place of prayer rather than a den of thieves trying to charge exorbitant rates to the poor so that they could first exchange their money to temple currency at rates that would make the commissions of airport money changers today look like bargains, and they would do this to be able to buy turtle doves or lambs at many times their real cost to be able to sacrifice to God. Such greed, such lack of charity, such spiritual worldliness, were desecrating the temple and Jesus wanted the sacrilege to end. Sometimes we, too, desecrate our temple. We can be as greedy as those moneychangers. We can neglect or take advantage of the vulnerable. We can turn what should be a place of God into a place of scandal. Zeal for the Father’s house consumed Jesus and that’s what led to his purifying the Temple. Loving zeal for the Father and for us leads him just as severely wants to want to drive out whatever in us doesn’t belong in the Church we are. In the Sermon on the Mount he told us, “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” Zeal for his house, zeal for our salvation, still consumes him and not only should we be grateful for his healing love but share that zeal. Paul picked up on the same theme in his letter to the Church in Corinth. He reminds us, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” Sins, he went on to say, rather than glorifying God in the body, blaspheme God, desecrate the temple and, when they’re serious enough, evict God from his own sanctuary. St. Paul reminds the Corinthians and us, “The body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. … [Therefore] Shun immorality.” God wants us to keep our own temple as clean as sacristans seek to keep their sanctuaries clean. If we commit venial sins, it’s like allowing this Church to fill with dust, something that will eventually conceal its beauty. If we commit mortal sins, it’s like coming into this place of God and desecrating it with painted graffiti, or tar, or filth. If someone were to do that to the Church, it would rightly be considered a “hate-crime.” Whenever we commit a serious sin, it is likewise a “hate-crime” against God and against ourselves. But God’s mercy is greater. When a Church is desecrated by a hate-crime, the damage needs to be fixed and cleaned and then the Church needs to be reconsecrated by the bishop or his delegate. When we’ve desecrated the temple of God’s presence, God himself seeks to clean it through the ministration of the bishop or his priest collaborators to clean and to reconsecrate it through a good confession, something that brings our souls back to their baptismal beauty and allows the living water to flow anew bringing life and gladdening the temple.
            • The final application is to make sure that the Temple we are is put to good use in the worship and service of God and others. The Father’s house is meant to be a house of prayer. That’s why it’s so sad whenever we see closed or run down Churches. That’s why it’s even sadder when we see spiritually dilapidated men and women. Like Churches, we are supposed to be houses of worship, places where Jesus’ word resonates, Bethanies where we sit at his feet and allow him to feed us, centers where the fruit of prayer, charity, takes place in thought and deed, sanctuaries where God is at the center and adored rather than ourselves or various idols. Our daily schedule is supposed to be a “liturgy of hours,” our heart an altar, our life a Mass, in which we, together with Jesus, say to the Father and to others, this is my body, this is my blood, given out of love for you.
            • We become ever more the temple of God, the dwelling place of the Most High, when we literally receive God within during Holy Communion. We become God’s holy dwelling place. This is where the water flowing from Christ’s side, “the waters of the river gladden the city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High” flows at full force within us. This is the place in which God the Father, the Master Builder, builds us on his Son. Every time we receive Holy Communion it’s meant to be a rededication of the temple we have become as God the Father gives us here the grace to help us become an ever more solid living stone on Christ the cornerstone, living within us. And he wants to help us to do our part, like St. Francis, to hold up the Lateran Basilica, and all that it symbolizes.

              •  

              The readings for today’s Mass were: 

              Reading 1 EZ 47:1-2, 8-9, 12
              The angel brought me
              back to the entrance of the temple,
              and I saw water flowing out
              from beneath the threshold of the temple toward the east,
              for the façade of the temple was toward the east;
              the water flowed down from the southern side of the temple,
              south of the altar.
              He led me outside by the north gate,
              and around to the outer gate facing the east,
              where I saw water trickling from the southern side.
              He said to me,
              “This water flows into the eastern district down upon the Arabah,
              and empties into the sea, the salt waters, which it makes fresh.
              Wherever the river flows,
              every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live,
              and there shall be abundant fish,
              for wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh.
              Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow;
              their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail.
              Every month they shall bear fresh fruit,
              for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary.
              Their fruit shall serve for food, and their leaves for medicine.”
              Responsorial Psalm PS 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9
              R. (5) The waters of the river gladden the city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High!
              God is our refuge and our strength,
              an ever-present help in distress.
              Therefore, we fear not, though the earth be shaken
              and mountains plunge into the depths of the sea.
              R. The waters of the river gladden the city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High!
              There is a stream whose runlets gladden the city of God,
              the holy dwelling of the Most High.
              God is in its midst; it shall not be disturbed;
              God will help it at the break of dawn.
              R. The waters of the river gladden the city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High!
              The LORD of hosts is with us;
              our stronghold is the God of Jacob.
              Come! behold the deeds of the LORD,
              the astounding things he has wrought on earth.
              R. The waters of the river gladden the city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High!
              Reading 2 1 COR 3:9C-11, 16-17
              Brothers and sisters:
              You are God’s building.
              According to the grace of God given to me,
              like a wise master builder I laid a foundation,
              and another is building upon it.
              But each one must be careful how he builds upon it,
              for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there,
              namely, Jesus Christ.Do you not know that you are the temple of God,
              and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
              If anyone destroys God’s temple,
              God will destroy that person;
              for the temple of God, which you are, is holy.

              Alleluia 2 CHR 7:16

              R. Alleluia, alleluia.

              I have chosen and consecrated this house, says the Lord,
              that my name may be there forever.
              R. Alleluia, alleluia.

              Gospel JN 2:13-22

              Since the Passover of the Jews was near,

              Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
              He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves,
              as well as the money-changers seated there.
              He made a whip out of cords
              and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen,
              and spilled the coins of the money-changers
              and overturned their tables,
              and to those who sold doves he said,
              “Take these out of here,
              and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”
              His disciples recalled the words of Scripture,
              Zeal for your house will consume me.
              At this the Jews answered and said to him,
              “What sign can you show us for doing this?”
              Jesus answered and said to them,
              “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”
              The Jews said,
              “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years,
              and you will raise it up in three days?”
              But he was speaking about the temple of his Body.
              Therefore, when he was raised from the dead,
              his disciples remembered that he had said this,
              and they came to believe the Scripture
              and the word Jesus had spoken.

              The post The Rededication of the Church, Feast of the Dedication of the Archbasilica of St. John in the Lateran, November 9, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

              23 min
            • Calculating the Cost of Love to Be Jesus’ True Disciples, 31st Wednesday (I), November 8, 2023

              Fr. Roger J. Landry

              Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
              Wednesday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
              Memorial of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity
              November 8, 2023
              Rom 13:8-10, Ps 112, Lk 14:25-33

               

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

              https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.8.23_Homily_1.mp3

               

              The following points were attempted in the homily:

              • In yesterday’s Gospel, Jesus told a parable about how to respond to his calling us into his kingdom, which he describes as a joyous banquet. But he said that in response to the invitation, people excused themselves to care for their fields, oxen, and newly married wife. The moral is that often we do not recognize the value of the calling we’ve received and act according to that value. In today’s Gospel, Jesus doubled down on the point he was making in order that we grasp clearly the greatness of the call and the need to make decisive choices to put God in his proper place and order all other aspects of our life to him. He does so in a dramatic way. St. Luke tells us that “great crowds” were traveling with him. He had fixed his face on Jerusalem (Lk 9:51) and was on a long way of the Cross; the multitudes, like the apostles, thought and hoped that they were on a triumphal procession for Jesus to be recognized as Messiah, to unite the people and to drive out the Romans. Jesus turned around to the crowds and didn’t say, “How nice of you to come!” Rather, out of love he challenged them to know what they were signing up for if they were prepared to follow him all the way. He wanted them to count the cost of discipleship and be willing to pay it, knowing that to obtain the pearl of great price, to enter the banquet of the kingdom, wouldn’t come on the cheap. He tells us that to follow him as his disciple to salvation, we have to do three things.:
                • First, we need to “hate” father and mother, spouse and children, brothers and  sisters. The Hebrew word for “hate” doesn’t mean “detest,” but rather “put in second place” or “knock down a peg.” Jesus, after all, calls us to honor our father and mother, not despise them. But we have to make sure that they don’t become gods in our life, that if there is ever a choice between what God is asking of us and what our parents, husband or wife, or children are asking of us, that we say “God’s will be done” instead of “My loved one’s will be done.” And we need to remember that if we do “hate” them in this way, we actually will love them more because we will love them in God.
                • Second, Jesus says one needs to hate “even his own life,” “carry his own cross” and “follow” Him. We need to account Jesus’ life more valuable than our own, in imitation of him who deemed our life more valuable than His. This is the faith that led the martyrs to heaven. If we love our comforts, our life in this world more than we love God, then we won’t be completing the work of salvation because Jesus clearly taught us that to save our life we must lose it and that unless we fall to the ground and die like a grain of wheat we won’t bear the fruit of salvation.
                • Third, Jesus says one must “renounce all his possessions.” We must renounce the stuff that possesses us and then as good stewards use everything we have and are for God and his service, giving of ourselves together with our things for God and others, because if we cling to possessions we will not be able to fit through the eye of the needle to salvation.
                • In buttressing the conditions of the completion of the work of our salvation, Jesus employs two analogies that point to the cost of discipleship. He says that to build a tower, we need to calculate the cost and get the proper supplies lest we not finish what we began. Likewise, to win a battle, we have to know whether we have the resources to defeat the enemy. In building the tower toward heaven, among the supplies we have to have is detachment from ourselves, our loved ones, our possessions and our life. In fighting against the twenty thousand troops of the evil one, we have to divest ourselves of whatever will hinder us in battle, whatever earthly desires the devil can use against us. We won’t be able to finish what’s been started unless we count and pay the cost, knowing that in the biggest picture of all, this is the wisest and greatest deal in life, the treasure worth more than everything else. We also need to know that Jesus never calls us to something — especially something this hard — without providing the means necessary to do it. His help, however, doesn’t eliminate our sacrifice, but it does make the sacrifice lighter and sweeter.
                • Today in the first reading, St. Paul tells the first Roman Catholics and all of us about the cost that needs to be paid, about what we’re really signing up for if we follow Jesus. It’s a clear continuation of what we pondered yesterday in meditating on the 20 ways he described we needed to “let [our] love be sincere.” Today he says, “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another.” Not only is this a statement against amassing financial debt — words that are very important today in a culture that doesn’t save but charges beyond their means on credit cards, and borrows way beyond our means as a national government  — but it is a reminder for us that we do have a debt to love one another. Loving one another is not a good suggestion by Jesus. It’s not even just a command. It’s a debt to pay, it’s a real duty, it’s something we owe others. This might seem strange at first to think we owe everyone a debt of love, but when we take seriously Jesus’ words that whatever we do for the least of our brothers and sisters, we do to him (Mt 25:31-46), then it’s easier to understand, if still hard to do: because we owe a debt to Jesus for everything — for our life, our salvation, our gifts, etc. — we pay that debt in the way we love each other. St. Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, wrote in Love and Responsibility that the other is someone before whom the only worthy response is love. This debt is paid, first, in keeping the commandments. Today St. Paul lists the “second tablet” of the Decalogue, focused on love of neighbor, reminding us that the “one who loves one another has fulfilled the law” and “love is the fulfillment of the law.” Jesus said something similar in St. Matthew’s Gospel (which we heard ten days ago at Sunday Mass), when he reminded us that all the law and the prophets, including obviously the Ten Commandments, hinges on the love of God with all our mind, heart, soul and strength, and the love of our neighbor as we love ourselves.
                • How are we doing in paying that debt to everyone we meet? We often think that we are loving others by the simple fact that we wish them good things or don’t hate them, but love is a sacrifice of ourselves for the good of the other as other, and we need to ask ourselves whether, when we look at each other and at others in general, we find ourselves in a real debt of love for them that we feel impelled from within to pay. Just like St. Therese Lisieux, each of us is called to be love in the heart of the Church, to love others with the love with which Christ has loved us first, and to do this concretely. There are lots of ways that we could apply this to our lives, but I’d like to focus on three.
                  • First, if we’re really loving others, do we ever tell them we love them? Jesus himself said to us during the Last Supper, “Just as the Father loves me, so I love you,” and he wants us, having been loved by him, to say to others, “Just like Jesus loves me, I want to love you” and “I love you with the love of Jesus.”
                  • Second, if we’re really loving others, we’ll be making willing sacrifices for them. Jesus’ love led him to lay down his life for us, and all love is a reflection of that basic nature of love, which is a willingness to say no to ourselves to say yes for another, to do all that we morally can for another. St. Paul is saying we have a debt that leads us to sacrifice for others.
                  • Third, if we’re really loving others then, as St. Paul said yesterday, we’ll be doing so “with affection.” It’s not enough to sacrifice. God wants us to sacrifice from the heart, not just “paying a debt” that we owe to someone reluctantly, but with passion freely doing something for someone we either naturally or with effort want to treat with great warmth. God loves a cheerful giver, so he loves an affective lover, friend, Christian self-giver. I love the story of St. Therese’s treatment of the curmudgeonly old sister whom nobody really cared for, and how, through loving her with affection, she changed for the better in her relations with everyone. To me, it seems obviously that that old sister was just wanting for real human love, for friendship, for agape, for the love of Christ mediated through his Mystical Body. Everyone needs that.
                  • Someone who learned how to follow Christ in loving this way, and has taught a century of Catholics how to love similarly, is St. Elizabeth of the Trinity (1880-1906), whom the Church celebrates today. She is someone who would come to account everything else as loss compared to knowing God. One of the most inspirational things about her is that she clearly wasn’t born a saint. She resisted following Christ to the point of self-sacrificial love to which he summons all of us. She didn’t want to pay the price of discipleship. She needed God’s grace to overcome a ferocious temper. Her mother and a confessor told her that, because of her strong personality, she would either become a terror or a saint. A big change took place with her first Confession at the age of seven. It brought her what she called her “conversion” and from that point forward she vowed, despite ongoing struggles, to become a “sweet, patient and obedient daughter.” As she was preparing for her first Holy Communion four years later when she was 11, a religious sister told her that her name, Elizabeth, meant “House of God” — actually it means “oath of God,” but the sister thought that the combination of “El” (God) and “beth” (house) was determinative despite the intervening letters (omnia in bonum!) — and that thought arrested her. She thought that she could not have such beautiful a name and not live as a house of God. Such a house could not abide someone who was prone to explosions and a source of trouble to others. She asked for the Lord’s help who came to dwell within and whose presence she grew more aware of and treasured. A great pianist and award winner at the Dijon Conservatory, she started to use her musical abilities for God’s glory rather than her own, by singing in two Church choirs. She would eventually say that she wanted to do all things for the praise of God’s glory. She began teaching Catechism so that others would share the same holy desire. She lived just 250 yards from a Discalced Carmelite Monastery and she wanted to enter there in order to serve God with everything she had, a response to a calling she discerned God had given her. She visited the convent when she was 17 and the superior there gave her a copy of a circular manuscript of a French Carmelite who had died just months before, and that first version of what would become St. Therese’s Story of a Soul had a big impact on her and her desire to grow in prayer. Her widowed mother resisted her vocation for several years in the hope that Elizabeth would finally fall for one of her many suitors, but finally relented enough to say that she would need to wait until 21. Elizabeth’s mom still hadn’t counted the value of discipleship that would make the cost seem small, but Elizabeth persevered and entered at 21, where she would grow in the love of God for five years, until she would die of Addison’s disease at the age of 26. Her life for Christ in the Holy Eucharist, as a house of God, led her to grasp that she could find and love him in the little things of each day, saying, “I find Him everywhere while doing the wash as well as while praying.” She became known as the “prophet of the presence of God.” Saint Elizabeth’s beautiful prayer about God’s dwelling within us in grace is contained for us in paragraph 260 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church describing how not only is God’s plan for us to enter into the perfect unity of the Trinity in heaven, but to become a dwelling place of God now. “O my God,” she prayed, “Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely so to establish myself in you, unmovable and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. … Grant my soul peace. Make it your heaven, your beloved dwelling and the place of your rest. May I never abandon you there, but may I be there, whole and entire, completely vigilant in my faith, entirely adoring, and wholly given over to your creative action.” She accepted her own immense sufferings as a gift from God to bring about a union with Christ on the Cross and to allow her to join Christ in the salvation of souls, making up what was lacking in her of his sufferings for the sake of his body the Church. She wasn’t afraid to die, saying, “I am going to Light, to Love, to Life,” because in this world, within her, she was regularly communing with that same Light, Love and Life. Before Saint Elizabeth died, she said, “I think that in Heaven my mission will be to draw souls by helping them to go out of themselves in order to cling to God by a wholly simple and loving movement, and to keep them in this great silence within, which will allow God to communicate Himself to them and to transform them into Himself.” She wanted to lead them on the exodus of love out of the self toward God and others.
                  • To strengthen us to love like this, Christ himself comes as Love incarnate to make his abode in us and help us to love like him. This is where we get the resources to build the tower and win the war. This is where we unite with him in praying for all our family members, where we bring our crosses and receive his strength to yoke ourselves to him by means of them, to die to ourselves so that he may live, and to detach ourselves from worldly goods to find in him our treasure. In the Psalm we prayed, “Blessed the man who is gracious,” who “lavishly he gives to the poor.” Jesus graciously and lavishly gives himself to us each morning in our poverty. He says by this gift “I love you” with all I am and have, and then he sends us forward to love not just like that but together with him. We prayed in the Psalm, “His generosity shall endure forever,” and one of the ways it endures is when we receive his loving generously to overflowing and pay that generosity forward in the affectionate, verbal and nonverbal way we imitate his agape and philia in loving each other and fulfilling the new and eternal Covenant and the whole moral law.

                    •  

                    The readings for today’s Mass were: 

                    Reading 1 ROM 13:8-10
                    Brothers and sisters:
                    Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another;
                    for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
                    The commandments, You shall not commit adultery;
                    you shall not kill;
                    you shall not steal;
                    you shall not covet,
                    and whatever other commandment there may be,
                    are summed up in this saying, namely,
                    You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
                    Love does no evil to the neighbor;
                    hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.
                    Responsorial Psalm PS 112:1B-2, 4-5, 9
                    R. ( 5a) Blessed the man who is gracious and lends to those in need.
                    or:
                    R. Alleluia.
                    Blessed the man who fears the LORD,
                    who greatly delights in his commands.
                    His posterity shall be mighty upon the earth;
                    the upright generation shall be blessed.
                    R. Blessed the man who is gracious and lends to those in need.
                    or:
                    R. Alleluia.
                    He dawns through the darkness, a light for the upright;
                    he is gracious and merciful and just.
                    Well for the man who is gracious and lends,
                    who conducts his affairs with justice.
                    R. Blessed the man who is gracious and lends to those in need.
                    or:
                    R. Alleluia.
                    Lavishly he gives to the poor;
                    his generosity shall endure forever;
                    his horn shall be exalted in glory.
                    R. Blessed the man who is gracious and lends to those in need.
                    or:
                    R. Alleluia.

                    Alleluia 1 PT 4:14

                    R. Alleluia, alleluia.

                    If you are insulted for the name of Christ, blessed are you,
                    for the Spirit of God rests upon you.
                    R. Alleluia, alleluia.

                    Gospel LK 14:25-33
                    Great crowds were traveling with Jesus,
                    and he turned and addressed them,
                    “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother,
                    wife and children, brothers and sisters,
                    and even his own life,
                    he cannot be my disciple.
                    Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me
                    cannot be my disciple.
                    Which of you wishing to construct a tower
                    does not first sit down and calculate the cost
                    to see if there is enough for its completion?
                    Otherwise, after laying the foundation
                    and finding himself unable to finish the work
                    the onlookers should laugh at him and say,
                    ‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’
                    Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down
                    and decide whether with ten thousand troops
                    he can successfully oppose another king
                    advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops?
                    But if not, while he is still far away,
                    he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms.
                    In the same way,
                    everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions
                    cannot be my disciple.”

                    The post Calculating the Cost of Love to Be Jesus’ True Disciples, 31st Wednesday (I), November 8, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

                    25 min
                  • Sincerely Loving God and Others, 31st Tuesday (I), November 7, 2023

                    Fr. Roger J. Landry

                    Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
                    Tuesday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
                    Votive Mass for the Faithful Departed
                    November 7, 2023
                    Rom 12:5-16, Ps 131, Lk 14:15-24

                     

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

                    https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.7.23_Homily_1.mp3

                     

                    The following points were attempted in the homily:

                    • Today we get to the third part of the Letter of the Romans, which is St. Paul’s treatise on Christian life, his moral theology. This will be what we focus on for the rest of the week as we finish this beautiful and very rich epistle. Everything in this third section can be summed up, I think, by his expression in the middle of today’s passage, “Let love be sincere.” He’s calling us exactly to what Jesus Christ called us to do in the Gospel, to love: to grow in the image and likeness of God, who is love; to love God with all our mind, heart, soul and strength, and our love our neighbor as ourselves; to love as he loves us. St. Paul helpful adds the adjective “sincere.” Sincerity means that it has to be both truthful and from the heart, cut off from all duplicity. We can examine the entire passage from the perspective of sincere love and look at the way we live.
                    • Before we do so, however, we should begin where St. Paul begins. A few times a year I note some head scratching decisions made by the bishops and experts who were putting together the lectionary during the liturgical reforms after the Second Vatican Council. For example, how in neither the three-year Sunday cycle of readings or the two-year Daily cycle of readings do they have us ponder the scene of Ananias and Sapphire in the Acts of the Apostles or St. Paul’s word about worthiness for holy communion and the possibility of eating and drinking condemnation. But today’s missing passage is the most mind-blowing of all. It’s unfathomable that if we’re spending four weeks on the Letter to the Romans and five days on the third section, that we don’t include the passage Pope Benedict quoted more than any other passage in the New Testament (with the exception of Jn 12:24), what he says sums up the Christian response in faith, the four verses that begin this chapter. I similarly quote it all the time with regard to how we live the offertory at Mass and how we incorporate our entire being, body-and-soul, into the love of God. St. Paul says: “I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect. For by the grace given to me I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than one ought to think, but to think soberly, each according to the measure of faith that God has apportioned (Rom 12:1-4). We could preach whole retreats on this excision! St. Paul is saying that our logike latreia, our fitting way to respond to God, our sincere love for him, is to give ourselves to him totally as a living sacrifice. Such sincere love will transform our minds so that we may always discern what God is asking and then to live humbly, soberly and according to the faith God has given us.
                    • It’s on that foundation, St. Paul says with sincerity, that we must receive and“exercise” the gifts God has given us to love him and others: whether preaching, ministering, teaching, exhorting, giving alms, supervising, etc. We have to acknowledge these “graces given to us” and to use them for their purpose, without hijacking them for our own purposes, or burying them. We show our sincerity by how we seek to thank God for his gifts and use them for his kingdom. Then St. Paul continues with a litany of acts of sincere love for God and others, which I encourage you to use as an examination of conscience from time to time:
                      • Hate what is evil — If we love God and love others, we hate all evil and sin that alienates, divides, and ultimately kills those bonds of love.
                      • Hold onto what is good — When we love God, we are grateful for what he has given and treasure it, and similarly when we love others, we focus fundamentally on how good they are.
                      • Love one another with mutual affection — Our love can’t be cold. It must be full of affection, full of warmth, full of emotion. We should behave in such a way that others would think we’re the president of their fan club, that we don’t just love them but like them, and admire them and rejoice in them. We need to ask how we can love each other with greater affection.
                      • Anticipate one another in showing honor — When we honor someone, we revere them, we praise them, we thank them for going way beyond what is due, we lift them up. A Christian community, filled with love, should be like a happy marriage, in which spouses anticipate one another in loving, praising, and honoring.
                      • Do not grow slack in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord — If we sincerely love the Lord, we will seek to grow each day in zeal, fervor and service.
                      • Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer — Our sincere love for the Lord will show itself in our joy, hope, endurance and persevering prayer, just as hardship can’t stop a husband’s love for a wife or a mom’s for her children.
                      • Contribute to the needs of the holy ones — Sincere love attends to the needs of others.
                      • Exercise hospitality — Sincere love rejoices to welcome.
                      • Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them — Sincere love for our enemies leads to blessing them rather than wishing them ill.
                      • Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep — Sincere love means sharing others’ joys and sorrows.
                      • Regard one another equally, do not be haughty but associate with the lowly — Sincere love for another makes us regard them at least as equals, if not superiors. We don’t condescend but descend in love to lift others up.
                      • Today in the Gospel Jesus calls us to sincerity in responding to our vocation to his kingdom, which is symbolized here by our vocation to the banquet of the kingdom that starts in this world and is meant never to end. Jesus gives a parable about those on the original guest list but who didn’t respond. They made excuses, one to go to his farm, another to inspect his oxen, a third to care for his wife. But none was responding with sincere love and gratitude. On the one hand, they were saying that they were honored by the invitation, but at the same time they were placing it after business, or animals or family. Jesus wants to help us to appreciate just how blessed are those called to the dinner of the Kingdom of God and to act in accordance with that realization. And as we were speaking about yesterday, when we encountered his secondary guest list for the first time — the lame, blind, crippled, poor — he wants us to express our sincere love for them by inviting them to our table and to the Lord’s. If the Lord has given us his invitation, he wants us to reciprocate by inviting him to ours, because, as he said, he identifies personally with all those who are hungry and thirst: “When I was hungry, you fed me.”
                      • “Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.” We are indeed blessed to be called to the Supper of the King, the Lamb of God himself. This is where he strengthens us to use all of our graces for his kingdom. This is the means by which he unites himself to us so that we can love as sincerely as he does. This is the place where we exercise our logike latreia, and present our bodies as a living, holy and acceptable sacrifice to him who says to us today, “This is my body, given for you.”

                        •  

                        The readings for today’s Mass were: 

                        Reading 1 ROM 12:5-16AB
                        Brothers and sisters:
                        We, though many, are one Body in Christ
                        and individually parts of one another.
                        Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us,
                        let us exercise them:
                        if prophecy, in proportion to the faith;
                        if ministry, in ministering;
                        if one is a teacher, in teaching;
                        if one exhorts, in exhortation;
                        if one contributes, in generosity;
                        if one is over others, with diligence;
                        if one does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.
                        Let love be sincere;
                        hate what is evil,
                        hold on to what is good;
                        love one another with mutual affection;
                        anticipate one another in showing honor.
                        Do not grow slack in zeal,
                        be fervent in spirit,
                        serve the Lord.
                        Rejoice in hope,
                        endure in affliction,
                        persevere in prayer.
                        Contribute to the needs of the holy ones,
                        exercise hospitality.
                        Bless those who persecute you,
                        bless and do not curse them.
                        Rejoice with those who rejoice,
                        weep with those who weep.
                        Have the same regard for one another;
                        do not be haughty but associate with the lowly.
                        Responsorial Psalm PS 131:1BCDE, 2, 3
                        R. In you, O Lord, I have found my peace.
                        O LORD, my heart is not proud,
                        nor are my eyes haughty;
                        I busy not myself with great things,
                        nor with things too sublime for me.
                        R. In you, O Lord, I have found my peace.
                        Nay rather, I have stilled and quieted
                        my soul like a weaned child.
                        Like a weaned child on its mother’s lap,
                        so is my soul within me.
                        R. In you, O Lord, I have found my peace.
                        O Israel, hope in the LORD,
                        both now and forever.
                        R. In you, O Lord, I have found my peace.

                        Alleluia MT 11:28

                        R. Alleluia, alleluia.

                        Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
                        and I will give you rest, says the Lord.
                        R. Alleluia, alleluia.

                        Gospel LK 14:15-24
                        One of those at table with Jesus said to him,
                        “Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.”
                        He replied to him,
                        “A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many.
                        When the time for the dinner came,
                        he dispatched his servant to say to those invited,
                        ‘Come, everything is now ready.’
                        But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves.
                        The first said to him,
                        ‘I have purchased a field and must go to examine it;
                        I ask you, consider me excused.’
                        And another said, ‘I have purchased five yoke of oxen
                        and am on my way to evaluate them;
                        I ask you, consider me excused.’
                        And another said, ‘I have just married a woman,
                        and therefore I cannot come.’
                        The servant went and reported this to his master.
                        Then the master of the house in a rage commanded his servant,
                        ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town
                        and bring in here the poor and the crippled,
                        the blind and the lame.’
                        The servant reported, ‘Sir, your orders have been carried out
                        and still there is room.’
                        The master then ordered the servant,
                        ‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows
                        and make people come in that my home may be filled.
                        For, I tell you, none of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.’”

                        The post Sincerely Loving God and Others, 31st Tuesday (I), November 7, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

                        14 min
                      • Seeking to Understand God’s Inscrutable Judgments and Follow His Unsearchable Ways, 31st Monday (I), November 6, 2023

                        Fr. Roger J. Landry

                        Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
                        Monday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
                        Votive Mass for the Faithful Departed
                        November 6, 2023
                        Rom 11:29-36, Ps 69, Lk 14:12-14

                         

                        To listen to an audio recording of this homily, please click here: 

                        https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.6.23_Homily_1.mp3

                         

                        The following points were attempted in the homily: 

                        • “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!,” St. Paul exclaims today. “How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!” There should always be fascination with God’s ways, because there will always remain some mystery. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways your ways,” God tells us through the Prophet Isaiah (55:8). All the same, Jesus told us during the Last Supper that he called us friends, “because I have revealed to you everything I have heard from my Father.” Jesus came down from heaven to earth to disclose to us, as much as our finite minds could handle, what God’s ways are, so that we could become as compassionate as God is, so that we could become “perfected” like our Father. The whole point of a Christian life is to become rich in the wisdom and knowledge of God and to imitate his still-partially-inscrutable judgments and follow his ever-partially-unsearchable ways.
                        • We see an instance of God’s inscrutable and rich wisdom in the first reading today. St. Paul describes the way God plans to save the Jews. Obviously there was a deep theological and pastoral concern in the early Church that so many Jews had rejected Jesus the Messiah when at last he came. St. Paul says that this was so that the Jews would need to ask for God’s mercy, just like the Gentiles needed to ask for God’s mercy. The Jews would see how merciful God was to the Gentiles and be able to beg for it themselves. “God delivered all to disobedience,” St. Paul writes, “so that he might have mercy on all.” For us, if we’re going to learn God’s wisdom and follow his ways, then we need to grasp that sometimes God permits others to sin against us so that we, like him, can be merciful to all, so that we can be as merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful.
                        • We see another instance of God’s inscrutable and rich wisdom in the Gospel — and how far we can sometimes be from God’s ways. Jesus tells us, “When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment.” This is precisely, of course, what we almost always do. Most of our families regularly invited relatives over for dinner and vice versa. Most of us at a university regularly get together for meals with our friends. Jesus is not telling us never to do so, but he’s stressing something else. “Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” This is what God does. He invites us here despite the fact that most days we have nothing or little with which to repay him for the gifts he’s given us, despite the fact that in following him we are crippled and lame, falling down all the time as we seek to follow in his footsteps, and despite the fact that we’re blind in seeing him in so many others, including the physically poor, crippled, lame and blind around us. But he invites us all the same. Those are his ways. And he wants us to imitate him in doing so, because that is the inscrutable path by which he wants to save us. At the end of today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” He doesn’t just say at the “resurrection,” because we know that at the end of time, there will be the “resurrection of life” and the “resurrection of condemnation” (Jn 5:29), there will be the separation of the “sheep” and the “goats,” respectively, to the kingdom of the Father or to the fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Mt 25:31-46). Jesus says specifically that those who do this will be repaid at the resurrection of the “righteous.” Jesus is indicating to us a clear path to heaven by acting on what he’s teaching today: the actual act of inviting and caring for those who cannot repay us, as well as the spiritual point of not doing things in any circumstance in order to be repaid.
                        • The greatest instance of God’s inscrutable judgments and unsearchable ways happened in Jesus’ incarnation and then crucifixion, death and resurrection, when God who took on our humanity allowed himself to be tortured and murdered by his creatures precisely in order to redeem them, drawing the greatest good of all from the greatest evil, taking our sins upon himself, so that we might receive mercy through our and everyone’s disobedience! That same Lord Jesus who loved us that much mysteriously and wondrously invites us here, as he does each day, in all our poverty, handicaps, and blindspots, in order to feed us with himself. And then he sends us out to do this in memory of him.

                          •  

                          The readings for today’s Mass were: 

                          Reading 1
                          ROM 11:29-36
                          Brothers and sisters:
                          The gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.
                          Just as you once disobeyed God
                          but have now received mercy
                          because of their disobedience,
                          so they have now disobeyed in order that,
                          by virtue of the mercy shown to you,
                          they too may now receive mercy.
                          For God delivered all to disobedience,
                          that he might have mercy upon all.
                          Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
                          How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!

                          For who has known the mind of the Lord
                          or who has been his counselor?
                          Or who has given him anything
                          that he may be repaid?
                          For from him and through him and for him are all things.
                          To God be glory forever. Amen.
                          Responsorial Psalm
                          PS 69:30-31, 33-34, 36
                          R. (14c) Lord, in your great love, answer me.
                          But I am afflicted and in pain;
                          let your saving help, O God, protect me.
                          I will praise the name of God in song,
                          and I will glorify him with thanksgiving.
                          R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
                          “See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
                          you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
                          For the LORD hears the poor,
                          and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.”
                          R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
                          For God will save Zion
                          and rebuild the cities of Judah.
                          They shall dwell in the land and own it,
                          and the descendants of his servants shall inherit it,
                          and those who love his name shall inhabit it.
                          R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
                          Gospel
                          LK 14:12-14
                          On a sabbath Jesus went to dine
                          at the home of one of the leading Pharisees.
                          He said to the host who invited him,
                          “When you hold a lunch or a dinner,
                          do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters
                          or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors,
                          in case they may invite you back and you have repayment.
                          Rather, when you hold a banquet,
                          invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;
                          blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.
                          For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

                          The post Seeking to Understand God’s Inscrutable Judgments and Follow His Unsearchable Ways, 31st Monday (I), November 6, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

                          17 min
                        • Leaders with Integrity, in the Image of the Triune God, Thirty-First Sunday (A), November 5, 2023

                          Fr. Roger J. Landry

                          Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan, NY
                          Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
                          November 5, 2023
                          Mal 1:14-2:2.8-10, Ps 131, 1 Thess 2:7-9.13, Mt 23:1-12

                           

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

                          https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.5.23_CCM_Homily_1.mp3

                           

                          The following text guided the homily: 

                          • At Columbia, students are expected to be leaders. Most were leaders in their schools and extracurriculars in order to be admitted. Many seize leadership opportunities among campus organizations while here. There’s a certain pressure for them to be leaders after graduation, eventually occupying C-suites in profit and non-profit companies, in politics, education and government, in various industries, across the gamut. At the same time, there’s a lot of disenchantment with present examples of leaders, from cowardly administrators, to corrupt politicians, to uninspiring religious leaders, to clueless coaches. That’s why what Jesus teaches today in the Gospel is not only key for us to grasp as Catholic disciples, but also as those called to be genuinely Christian leaders on campus, within our present and future families, within the Church and throughout all of society.
                          • The context of Jesus’ teaching is always important to understand it fully. Last week, as you remember, the Pharisees had sent a young scholar of the law to question Jesus about the greatest and most important commandment in the law, and Jesus had replied not just with the greatest — to love God with all their heart, soul and mind — but by volunteering a second, which he said was “like” or “similar” to the greatest, to love our neighbor as ourselves, saying that the two together summarize all that God had revealed to us morally in the law and the prophets. Jesus offered the second, it seems, because he wanted the Pharisees and everyone else to see that one great test of sincerity in loving God would be how we love others whom God loves and whom he has made in his image and likeness. He would underline all of this because at that very instant the Scribes and Pharisees were co-conspiring not just to entrap him, the neighbor in front of them, but to try to have him killed.
                          • This is all part of the essential context to understand the drama of today’s Gospel, when Jesus in front of the crowds undermines the authority of the Scribes’ and Pharisees’ example. Earlier, when he was alone with the apostles in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, he had warned the apostles, “Beware of the leaven — that is, the hypocrisy — of the Pharisees” (Lk 12:1; Mt 16:8). Now he was trying to help everyone to be on similar guard, as he was with tough love attempting to convert the Pharisees and Scribes from their pretensions. He denounced their lack of love of neighbor, their propensity to “tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders,” to perform their words to be seen, to “widen their phylacteries,” “lengthen their tassles,” to seek places and titles of honor and to exalt themselves. Yet, Jesus was saying that their bad behavior nevertheless could not be used by others as an excuse not to follow the Word of God that the Scribes and Pharisees were attempting to teach. The scandalous example of these pompous messengers, Jesus declared, did not invalidate the message God was giving us. In so doing, Jesus was giving the crowds, those he had chosen to be the leaders of his Church, and us today some crucial lessons about how to relate to God, to his revelation, to those who proclaim it, as well as teaching us the type of integrity he expects of us as we seek to proclaim the Gospel to all creatures and about the qualities of a true Christian leader in any context.
                          • The most important lesson Jesus makes clear in this scene is that we have only one Father, one Teacher and one Spiritual Guide — God himself. God is our Father, and any human parenthood (whether biological or spiritual) is derivative and vicarious of the Eternal Father’s paternity. Jesus is our one Teacher or Master and any other teaching must point to Him who is the Truth. The Holy Spirit is our one spiritual Guide, or Rabbi (“great one”), and any other guide must cooperate with the Holy Spirit to point the person along the straight path to true life and love. Intentionally using hyperbole, Jesus tells us to call no one on earth our father, or teacher, or rabbi, because he wants us first and foremost to be sons and daughters of the Father, faithful students of Jesus the Teacher, and docile followers of the Holy Spirit’s guidance. I say that Jesus was using hyperbole, because elsewhere, for example, Jesus himself refers to Abraham as the father of the Jews and tells us to honor our father and mother. So he’s clearly not saying that we can’t ever call anyone on earth father, teacher, or rabbi; rather, he was underlining what we can often forget: that all authority, truth and guidance, that all leadership, comes ultimately from God. The sad reality is that often human parents and father and mother figures, instructors, and guides, rather than leading us to God, to the truth and to goodness, sometimes can seem to want to take God’s place and lead them down literally dead ends. Jesus’ concern is not really one of vocabulary, but of mentality. As he says at the end of the passage, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” He wants us to become great, to become leaders, through loving service rather than through arrogance and raw ambition. He wants us to know that no one can take God’s place as the giver of life, as our teacher of the truth and our guide through life — and to the extent that any parent, teacher, guide or any other leader is worthy of the name, they must first be a good child, student and follower of the one Father, Teacher and Guide.
                          • That said, Jesus also stresses, paradoxically, that the triune God doesn’t work alone. Throughout salvation history, he has used many others as his instruments to bless us with the gifts of leadership, of parenthood, truth and direction. He illustrates this by what he says about the scribes and Pharisees. It’s not shocking that he tells us not to follow the Pharisees’ example, because, as he reiterates today and mentions many other times in the Gospel, they were hypocrites. What is surprising is that he nevertheless tells us to follow these hypocrites’ teaching. He says that they sit on “Moses’ seat.” We know that God had raised up Moses to pass on to the chosen people God’s own words and direction, leading them from slavery into the promised land. The scribes were those people who, after the Babylonian exile, spent their entire life learning the law of the Covenant God gave through Moses lest through infidelity the Jewish people ever suffer exile again. The Pharisees were the group of people who publicly dedicated themselves full-time to trying to live by the Scribes’ interpretation of the law. Jesus said that since they sit on Moses’ seat, “Do whatever they teach you and follow it,” because it is not essentially their words that we’re following, but God’s words through them. Their hypocrisy doesn’t invalidate God’s word. And we can’t use their failure to live it as a reason for us to ignore it or not live it either.
                          • At the same time, Jesus also gave a stern warning, which must have pained him to say: “But do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.” They were indeed hypocrites, the Greek word for actors, who were not acting on the words of God but just pretending to be faithful. They used their sitting on Moses’ seat to put burdens on others but had no love for those to whom they were preaching; they didn’t “lift a finger,” they didn’t make the least effort, to help others understand how — as we discussed last week — every one of God’s commands is given out of love and meant to help us to learn how to love God and love others, something that would make those burdens “light and sweet.” Their knowledge of God’s word, rather than making them holier, humbler, and more loving of others with whom they were attempting to share God’s word, had made them proud. While God’s word was not annulled, their personal failure to live it invalidated the authority of their example.
                          • What does this mean for us? If Jesus, who said that we have only one Father, Teacher and Guide, told us that God works vicariously to pass on to us his words and guidance though those sit on Moses’ seat, how much more would he say the same thing about those who sit not on Moses’ seat but on Christ’s own cathedra! The Pope is Christ’s own earthly vicar. Each bishop is a successor of the apostles. The priest is ordained by Christ through a bishop to be his collaborators. All of them, to varying degrees, sit on Christ’s own chair and are called to transmit not just the law of Moses, given by God to the Jewish people, but the law of Jesus Christ, given by God to the whole human race. So much did Jesus identify with them as his messengers that, before he sent them out to preach, he said, “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me” (Lk 10:16). Thus, Jesus is clearly saying to everyone in the Church relative to the Pope, our bishops and our priests, “Insofar as they sit on my chair or stand in my pulpit, ‘Do whatever they teach you and follow it,’ for it is not they speaking, but I speaking through them.” He wants all of us to receive the word just like the Thessalonians did, as St. Paul mentions in the second reading. The apostle praises them, stating, “[I] constantly give thanks to God, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you who believe.” So, too, the Gospel that our Holy Father or our bishop or our priests proclaim is not to be accepted as merely a “human word,” but at it really is, a divine word. The same for catechists and other teachers of the faith. The same for parents and Godparents passing on the faith. To the extent that they truthfully pass on God’s word, we must heed the message regardless of the qualities of the messenger.
                          • That’s the first powerful truth Jesus wants us to grasp. But there’s another. Just as Jesus 2,000 years ago didn’t stop with a simple affirmation of the divine provenance of his preachers’ words, so today, too, Jesus, with great pain, likely would say about some of the clergy he has called and ordained, some of the religious superiors who have been chosen, some of the parents he has blessed with children, some of those to whom he has given the vocation to teach the faith as religious educators, and some of those he has blessed with prominent positions in life: “But do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.” There have certainly been popes, bishops, priests, superiors, catechists, parents and other leaders who, like the scribes and Pharisees, have failed in conspicuous ways to live the word they preach to others. There are certainly those who burden others with the word, without showing them how it leads them to love God and others. There are those whose knowledge of the word has made them proud rather than holy. There are those who vainly seek for status, rather than humbly hunger to serve. While the example of hypocritical clergy obviously comes to mind as especially egregious, we can similarly deplore the un-Christian behavior of various prominent Catholic politicians, celebrities, judges, teachers, and unfaithful parents.
                          • But there’s even a greater evil that those in positions of spiritual authority can commit. Jesus didn’t even mention it in Sunday’s Gospel, because, despite all their defects and hypocrisy, the scribes and the Pharisees reverenced the word of God so much that they would never have succumbed to this temptation. They may have misunderstood God’s word, but they would never have tried to change it, or ignore it, or lie about it. But that’s not what was happening after the exile when the book of Malachi was written. The priests then were teaching contrary to the Law. As we heard in our first reading, God said through the prophet: “And now, O priests, this command is for you. … You have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by your instructions; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi, … inasmuch as you have not kept my ways but have shown partiality in your instruction.” Their teaching was erroneous. Their instruction was forcing others to stumble. It was not based on the inerrant word of God, but on their own opinions or half-truths (“partiality”). This all occurred, God said through Malachi, because “they had not laid it to heart,” they did not act on the Word and their immoral behavior started to alter their preaching so that they began to preach the same untruths they practiced.
                          • That ancient problem, we have to say with sadness, has returned. Some prominent Catholics, clergy, theologians, and Catholics in public life and within many families today, while sitting on Moses’ and Christ’s seat, rather than passing on God’s teaching, substitute their own. I could cite hundreds of examples of these false instructions, but here are some of the most common ones: “Jesus didn’t really work miracles;” “Scripture really isn’t inerrant but passes on the prejudices of its historical setting;” “The Eucharist is not really Jesus’ body and blood, just a symbol;” “It’s not necessary to go to confession;” “Catholics no longer believe in Hell, because no God who loved us could possibly allow us to go to Hell;” “There’s really no such thing any more as a mortal sin;” “The Church’s teachings on marriage are homophobic and immoral, discriminating against those of the same-sex who just want to love each other and have their loved sanctioned;” “It’s not a mortal sin to miss Mass on Sunday;” “The Church has no good reason not to ordain women as priests;” “You don’t have to follow the teachings of the Pope and the bishops; you just have to follow your conscience;” “It’s possible to be a faithful Catholic and support abortion, as long as you wouldn’t have an abortion yourself.” We could go on with these falsehoods — I’m sure we’ve all heard others — but the point is clear enough. This type of teaching malpractice and theological abuse may be the worst and most harmful damage a priest or catechism or parent or Christian in the public square can cause to the souls of others. Of course, we need to pray for the conversion of these false prophets, but we also need to be on-guard against such falsehoods, even from those in authority; and the greatest defense we could have is to know our faith well, so that we would never be gullible to such lies masquerading as truths.
                          • What does the Lord want from all of us who are called to pass on the faith to others? It’s obvious that Jesus wants us to have integrity, to preach His words — all of them, including the more challenging messages — and to practice what he expects us to preach. Twenty-five years ago last month, I was ordained a deacon at St. Peter’s in the Vatican. In the rite of ordination, there’s a beautiful moment when the freshly ordained deacon kneels before the bishop in front of the altar. The prelate takes the Book of the Gospel and places it in the candidates’ hands, saying, “Receive the Gospel of Christ whose herald you have become. Believe what you read. Teach what you believe. Practice what you teach.” Each of us, like the deacon, is called to become one with the word, to believe it, teach it and live it. The greatest way we proclaim the Gospel is by humbly putting it into practice. Our example is worth a thousand homilies or books or treatises.
                          • Paul was one who lived, preached and practiced in this way. He says in today’s second reading that his intention was to treat the Christians in Thessalonika with the love of a “nurse tenderly caring for her own children.” And the only way he knew to do that was to share with them “not only the Gospel of God, but also our very selves.” Paul was giving them not only the words of eternal life, but his whole being as well, which had become one with that word. In this, he achieved greatness; he became truly holy. At the end of today’s Gospel, Jesus said that the greatest leader would be the humble servant of the rest, and that’s what St. Paul sought to be. He was so humble he even worked his old job as a tentmaker so that he wouldn’t be even a minimal burden among them. His greatest reward was that they received the Gospel well — as God’s word at work within them, seeking to unite them through it to God himself.
                          • Paul’s example shows all of us who are called to be leaders in passing on our faith important lessons. The true parent, teacher and guide always seeks to give himself along with the Lord out of love for the people he’s called to serve. The true parent’s, teacher’s and guide’s greatest prayer is that others receive the word not as his own, but as the Word of God working in its faithful hearers and doers. That is the way his or her listeners will be transformed — like Paul, like the other apostles, like so many of their early Christian communities — to become one with that word. That’s the way, we ponder in this month of November, we will become saints. Then the student will be able to become a teacher, the son or daughter a spiritual parent, the disciple a spiritual guide, enfleshing that word and bringing it to others. The same Jesus who told us that only one is our Father, Teacher and spiritual Guide wants to enable us to become his instruments to bring his teaching, fatherly care and direction to others, in our chaplaincies, campuses, classrooms, dorm rooms, homes, work, and everywhere we are and go. Jesus’ last words before ascending to heaven were, “Go and teach all nations, baptizing them and reminding them of everything I have taught you, knowing that I am with you always until the end of the world.” And he wants us, through transformation by his saving word every Mass, to become true servant leaders in carrying out those marching orders.
                          • Each Mass is meant to help us live the lessons Jesus gives in the Gospel. We come to meet God our Father, Jesus our Teacher, the Holy Spirit our Guide. We come to listen to the Word of God as words to be done. We come to believe what we read, teach what we believe and practice what we teach. And that integration takes its model from Jesus in the Eucharist, the Word made flesh, as he seeks to take up his teaching chair within our own body and soul as he sends us out with him to proclaim and live the truth. From within, he wants to help us become sons and daughters of the Father from whom all biological and spiritual parenthood derives. From within, he desires to assist us to become ever greater students of Jesus the Master. From within, he wants to help us become ever more fired up and faithful followers of the Holy Spirit’s guidance. In sum, from within, he wishes us to become true leaders by helping us humble ourselves so that he himself, the Savior of the human race, can fully work within us. Jesus wants to make us truly Christian leaders about whom he will be able to say: Observe and do all things whatsoever they tell you and follow their example. These are the leaders the Church and the world need today. These are the leaders whom, by our Baptism and Confirmation, he has summoned us to be.

                            •  

                            The readings for today’s Mass were:

                            Reading 1
                            Mal 1:14b-2:2b, 8-10
                            A great King am I, says the LORD of hosts,
                            and my name will be feared among the nations.
                            And now, O priests, this commandment is for you:
                            If you do not listen,
                            if you do not lay it to heart,
                            to give glory to my name, says the LORD of hosts,
                            I will send a curse upon you
                            and of your blessing I will make a curse.
                            You have turned aside from the way,
                            and have caused many to falter by your instruction;
                            you have made void the covenant of Levi,
                            says the LORD of hosts.
                            I, therefore, have made you contemptible
                            and base before all the people,
                            since you do not keep my ways,
                            but show partiality in your decisions.
                            Have we not all the one father?
                            Has not the one God created us?
                            Why then do we break faith with one another,
                            violating the covenant of our fathers?
                            Responsorial Psalm
                            Ps 131:1, 2, 3
                            R. In you, Lord, I have found my peace.
                            O LORD, my heart is not proud,
                            nor are my eyes haughty;
                            I busy not myself with great things,
                            nor with things too sublime for me.
                            R. In you, Lord, I have found my peace.
                            Nay rather, I have stilled and quieted
                            my soul like a weaned child.
                            Like a weaned child on its mother’s lap,
                            so is my soul within me.
                            R. In you, Lord, I have found my peace.
                            O Israel, hope in the LORD,
                            both now and forever.
                            R. In you, Lord, I have found my peace.
                            Reading 2
                            1 Thes 2:7b-9, 13
                            Brothers and sisters:
                            We were gentle among you, as a nursing mother cares for her children.
                            With such affection for you, we were determined to share with you
                            not only the gospel of God, but our very selves as well,
                            so dearly beloved had you become to us.
                            You recall, brothers and sisters, our toil and drudgery.
                            Working night and day in order not to burden any of you,
                            we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.

                            And for this reason we too give thanks to God unceasingly,

                            that, in receiving the word of God from hearing us,
                            you received not a human word but, as it truly is, the word of God,
                            which is now at work in you who believe.

                            Alleluia
                            Mt 23:9b, 10b
                            R. Alleluia, alleluia.
                            You have but one Father in heaven
                            and one master, the Christ.
                            R. Alleluia, alleluia.
                            Gospel
                            Mt 23:1-12
                            Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying,
                            “The scribes and the Pharisees
                            have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.
                            Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,
                            but do not follow their example.
                            For they preach but they do not practice.
                            They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry
                            and lay them on people’s shoulders,
                            but they will not lift a finger to move them.
                            All their works are performed to be seen.
                            They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.
                            They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues,
                            greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’
                            As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’
                            You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers.
                            Call no one on earth your father;
                            you have but one Father in heaven.
                            Do not be called ‘Master’;
                            you have but one master, the Christ.
                            The greatest among you must be your servant.
                            Whoever exalts himself will be humbled;
                            but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

                            The post Leaders with Integrity, in the Image of the Triune God, Thirty-First Sunday (A), November 5, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

                            30 min
                          • Following God Our Father, Master and Guide, Thirty-First Sunday (A), November 5, 2023

                            Fr. Roger J. Landry

                            Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY
                            Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
                            November 5, 2023
                            Mal 1:14-2:2.8-10, Ps 131, 1 Thess 2:7-9.13, Mt 23:1-12

                             

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

                            https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.5.23_MCs_Homily_1.mp3

                             

                            The following text guided the homily: 

                            • Last week, as you remember, the Pharisees had sent a young scholar of the law to question Jesus about the greatest and most important commandment in the law, and Jesus had replied not just with the greatest — to love God with all their heart, soul and mind — but by volunteering a second, which he said was “like” or “similar” to the greatest, to love our neighbor as ourselves, saying that the two together summarize all that God had revealed to us morally in the law and the prophets. Jesus offered the second, it seems, because he wanted the Pharisees and everyone else to see that one great test of sincerity in loving God would be how we love others whom God loves and whom he has made in his image and likeness. Jesus later would say, not, “Love me as I have loved you,” but “Love one another as I have loved you.” He would also summon Peter, out of love for him, to feed and tend the sheep and lambs he would entrust to him. And St. John would state that we can’t love the God we can’t see without first loving the brother or sister we can see. He would underline all of this because the Pharisees and Scribes who were trying to test him believed they loved God while not loving their neighbors as themselves. They lived by the principle, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,” and narrowly defined who their neighbor was, a mentality Jesus addressed in the Parable of the Good Samaritan when he used the hated Samaritans to make the point that he wants us to love everyone in our neighborhood. Jesus also knew that at that very instant the Scribes and Pharisees were co-conspiring not just to entrap him, the neighbor in front of them, but to try to have him killed.
                            • This is all part of the essential context to understand the drama of today’s Gospel, when Jesus in front of the crowds undermines the authority of the Scribes’ and Pharisees’ example. Earlier, when he was alone with the apostles in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, he had warned the apostles, “Beware of the leaven — that is, the hypocrisy — of the Pharisees” (Lk 12:1; Mt 16:8). Now he was trying to help everyone to be on guard, as he was with tough love attempting to convert the Pharisees and Scribes from their pretensions. At the same time, however, as he was denouncing their lack of neighbor, their propensity to “tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders,” to perform their words to be seen, to “widen their phylacteries,” “lengthen their tassles,” to seek places and titles of honor and to exalt themselves, Jesus was saying that their bad behavior nevertheless could not be used as an excuse not to follow the Word of God that they were attempting to teach. The scandalous example of these pompous messengers, he declared, did not invalidate the message God was giving us. In so doing, Jesus was giving his leaders then, and us today, some crucial lessons about how to relate to God, to his revelation, and to those who proclaim it, as well as teaching us the type of integrity he expects of us as we seek to proclaim the Gospel to all creatures.
                            • The most important message Jesus makes clear in this scene is that we have only one Father, one Teacher and one Spiritual Guide — God himself. God is our Father, and any human parenthood (whether biological or spiritual) is derivative and vicarious of the Eternal Father’s paternity. Jesus is our one Teacher or Master and any other teaching must point to Him who is the Truth. The Holy Spirit is our one Spiritual Guide, or Rabbi (“great one”), and any other guide must cooperate with the Holy Spirit to point the person along the straight path to true life and love. Intentionally using hyperbole, Jesus tells us to call no one on earth our father, or teacher, or rabbi, because he wants us first and foremost to be sons and daughters of the Father, faithful students of Jesus the Teacher, and docile followers of the Holy Spirit’s guidance. I say that Jesus was using hyperbole, because elsewhere Jesus himself refers to Abraham as the father of the Jews and tells us to honor our father and mother. So he’s clearly not saying that we can’t ever call anyone on earth father, teacher, or rabbi, but rather he was underlining what we can often forget: that all authority, truth and guidance comes ultimately from God. The sad reality is that often human parents and father and mother figures, instructors, and guides, rather than leading us to God, sometimes can seem to want to take God’s place. Jesus’ concern is not really one of vocabulary, but of mentality. As he says at the end of the passage, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” He wants us to become great through loving service rather than through arrogance. He wants us to know that no one can take God’s place as the giver of life, as our teacher of the truth and our guide through life — and to the extent that any parent, teacher, or guide is worthy of the name, they must first be a good child, student and follower of the one Father, Teacher and Guide.
                            • That said, Jesus also stresses, paradoxically, that the triune God doesn’t work alone. Throughout salvation history, he has used many others as his instruments to bless us with the gifts of parenthood, truth and direction. He illustrates this by what he says about the scribes and Pharisees. It’s not shocking that he tells us not to follow the Pharisees’ example, because, as he reiterates today and mentions many other times in the Gospel, they were hypocrites. What is surprising is that he nevertheless tells us to follow these hypocrites’ teaching. He says that they sit on “Moses’ seat.” We know that God raised up Moses to pass on to the chosen people God’s own words and direction, leading them from slavery into the promised land. The scribes were those people who, after the Babylonian exile, spent their entire life learning the law of the Covenant God gave through Moses. The Pharisees were the group of people who publicly dedicated themselves full-time to trying to live by the Scribes’ interpretation of the law. Jesus said that since they sit on Moses’ seat, “Do whatever they teach you and follow it,” because it is not essentially their words that we’re following, but God’s words through them. Their hypocrisy doesn’t invalidate God’s word. And we can’t use their failure to live it as a reason for us to ignore it or not live it either.
                            • At the same time, Jesus also gave a stern warning, which must have pained him to say: “But do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.” They were indeed hypocrites, the Greek word for actors, who were not acting on the words of God but just pretending to be faithful. They used their sitting on Moses’ seat to put burdens on others but had no love for those to whom they were preaching; they didn’t “lift a finger,” didn’t make the least effort, to help others understand how — as we discussed last week — every one of God’s commands is given out of love and meant to help us to learn how to love God and love others, something that would make those burdens “light and sweet.” Their knowledge of God’s word, rather than making them holier, rather than making them humbler, rather than making them more loving of others with whom they were attempting to share God’s word, had made them proud. While God’s word was not annulled, their personal failure to live it invalidated the authority of their example.
                            • What does this mean for us today? If Jesus, who said that we have only one Father, Teacher and Guide, told us that God works vicariously to pass on to us his words and guidance though those sit on Moses’ seat, how much more would he say the same thing about those who sit not on Moses’ seat but on Christ’s own cathedra! The Pope is Christ’s own earthly vicar. Each bishop is a successor of the apostles. The priest is ordained by Christ through a bishop to be his collaborators. All of them, to varying degrees, sit on Christ’s own chair and are called to transmit not just the law of Moses, given by God to the Jewish people, but the law of Jesus Christ, given by God to the whole human race. So much did Jesus identify with them as his messengers that, before he sent them out to preach, he said, “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me” (Lk 10:16). Thus Jesus is clearly saying to everyone in the Church relative to the Pope, our bishops and our priests, “Insofar as they sit on my chair or stand in my pulpit, ‘Do whatever they teach you and follow it,’ for it is not they speaking, but I speaking through them.” He wants all of us to receive the word just like the Thessalonians did, as St. Paul mentions in the second reading. The apostle praises them, stating, “[I] constantly give thanks to God, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you who believe.” So, too, the Gospel that our Holy Father or our bishop or our priests proclaim is not to be accepted as merely a “human word,” but at it really is, a divine word. The same for religious superiors. The same for catechists and other teachers of the faith. The same for parents passing on the faith. To the extent that they truthfully pass on God’s word, we must heed the message regardless of the qualities of the messenger.
                            • That’s the first powerful truth Jesus wants us to grasp. But there’s another. Just as Jesus 2,000 years ago didn’t stop with a simple affirmation of the divine provenance of his preachers’ words, so today, too, Jesus, with great pain, likely would say about some of the clergy he has called and ordained, some of the religious superiors who have been chosen, some of the parents he has blessed with children, and some of those to whom he has given the vocation to teach the faith as religious educators: “But do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.” There have certainly been popes, bishops, priests, superiors, catechists, and parents who, like the scribes and Pharisees, have failed in conspicuous ways to live the word they preach to others. There are certainly those who burden others with the word, without showing them how it leads them to love God and others. There are those whose knowledge of the word has made them proud rather than holy. There are those who vainly seek for status, rather than humbly hunger to serve. While the example of hypocritical clergy obviously comes to mind as especially egregious, we can similarly deplore the un-Christian behavior of various prominent Catholic politicians, celebrities, judges, teachers, and parents.
                            • But there’s even a greater evil that spiritual fathers and mothers, teachers and guides can commit. Jesus didn’t even mention it in Sunday’s Gospel, because, despite all their defects and hypocrisy, the scribes and the Pharisees reverenced the word of God so much that they would never have succumbed to this temptation. They may have misunderstood God’s word, but they would never have tried to change it, or ignore it, or lie about it. But that’s not what was happening after the exile when the book of Malachi was written. The priests then were teaching contrary to the Law. As we heard in our first reading, God said through the prophet: “And now, O priests, this command is for you. … You have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by your instructions; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi, … inasmuch as you have not kept my ways but have shown partiality in your instruction.” Their teaching was erroneous. Their instruction was forcing others to stumble. It was not based on the inerrant word of God, but on their own opinions or half-truths (“partiality”). This all occurred, God said through Malachi, because “they had not laid it to heart,” they did not act on the Word and their immoral behavior started to alter their preaching so that they began to preach the same untruths they practiced.
                            • That ancient problem, we have to say with sadness, has returned. Some prominent Catholics, clergy, theologians, and Catholics in public life or the family today, while sitting on Moses’ and Christ’s seat, rather than passing on God’s teaching, substitute their own. I could cite hundreds of examples of these false instructions, but here are some of the most common ones: “Jesus didn’t really work miracles;” “Scripture really isn’t inerrant but passes on the prejudices of its historical setting;” “The Eucharist is not really Jesus’ body and blood, just a symbol;” “It’s not necessary to go to confession;” “Catholics no longer believe in Hell, because no God who loved us could possibly allow us to go to Hell;” “There’s really no such thing any more as a mortal sin, especially in the realm of sexuality;” “The Church’s teachings on marriage are homophobic and immoral, discriminating against those of the same-sex who just want to love each other and have their loved sanctioned;” “It’s not a mortal sin to miss Mass on Sunday;” “The Church has no good reason not to ordain women as priests;” “You don’t have to follow the teachings of the Pope and the bishops; you just have to follow your conscience;” “It’s possible to be a good Catholic and be pro-choice, as long as you wouldn’t have an abortion yourself.” We could go on with these falsehoods — I’m sure you’ve heard others — but the point should be clear enough. This type of teaching malpractice and theological abuse may be the worst and most harmful damage a priest or catechism or parent or Christian in the public square can cause. Of course, we need to pray for the conversion of these false prophets, but we also need to be on-guard against such falsehoods, even from those in authority; and the greatest defense we could have is to know our faith well, so that we would never be gullible to such lies masquerading as truths.
                            • What does the Lord want from all of us who are called to pass on the faith to others? It’s obvious that Jesus wants us to have integrity, to preach His words — all of them, including the more challenging messages — and to practice what he expects us to preach. In the rite of the ordination of deacons, there’s a beautiful moment when the candidate kneels before the bishop in front of the altar. The prelate takes the Book of the Gospel and places it in the candidates’ hands, saying, “Receive the Gospel of Christ whose herald you have become. Believe what you read. Teach what you believe. Practice what you teach.” Each of us, like the deacon, is called to become one with the word, to believe it, teach it and live it. The greatest way we proclaim the Gospel is by humbly putting it into practice. Our example is worth a thousand homilies or books or treatises.
                            • Paul was one who lived, preached and practiced in this way. He says in today’s second reading that his intention was to treat the Christians in Thessalonika with the love of a “nurse tenderly caring for her own children.” And the only way he knew to do that was to share with them “not only the Gospel of God, but also our very selves.” Paul was giving them not only the words of eternal life, but his whole being as well, which had become one with that word. In this, he achieved greatness; he became truly holy. Christ said that at the end of today’s Gospel that the greatest would be the humble servant of the rest, and that’s what St. Paul sought to be. He was so humble he even worked his old job as a tentmaker so that he wouldn’t be even a minimal burden among them. His greatest reward was that they received the Gospel well, as God’s word at work in them seeking to unite them through it to God himself.
                            • Paul’s example shows all of us who are called to pass on our faith important lessons. The true parent, teacher and guide always seeks to give himself along with the Lord out of love fpr the people he’s called to serve. The true parent’s, teacher’s and guide’s greatest prayer is that others receive the word not as his own, but as the Word of God working in its faithful hearers and doers. That is the way his listeners will be transformed — like Paul, like the other apostles, like so many of their early Christian communities — to become one with that word. That’s the way, we ponder in this month of November, we will become saints. Then the student will be able to become a teacher, the son or daughter a spiritual parent, the disciple a spiritual guide, enfleshing that word and bringing it to others. The same Jesus who told us that only one is our Father, Teacher and Spiritual Guide wants to enable us to become his instruments to bring his teaching, fatherly care and direction to others, in our parishes, chapels, convents, homes, schools, pantries, work, everywhere we are and go. His last words before ascending to heaven were, “Go and teach all nations, baptizing them and reminding them of everything I have taught you, knowing that I am with you always until the end of the world.” And he wants us, through transformation by his saving word every Mass, to carry out those marching orders.
                            • Each Mass is meant to help us live the lessons Jesus gives in the Gospel. We come to listen to the Word of God as words to be done. We’re called to believe what we read, teach what we believe and practice what we teach. And that integration takes its model from Jesus in the Eucharist, the Word made flesh, as he seeks to take up his teaching chair within our own body and soul as he sends us out with him to proclaim and live the truth. From within, he wants to help us become sons and daughters of the Father from whom all biological and spiritual parenthood derives. From within, he desires to assist us to become ever greater students of Jesus the Master. From within, he wants to help us become ever more fired up and faithful followers of the Holy Spirit’s guidance. He wants to be able to say about us: Observe and do all things whatsoever they tell you and follow their example. This is what he seeks to do in us today.

                              •  

                              The readings for this Sunday’s Mass were:

                              Reading 1
                              Mal 1:14b-2:2b, 8-10
                              A great King am I, says the LORD of hosts,
                              and my name will be feared among the nations.
                              And now, O priests, this commandment is for you:
                              If you do not listen,
                              if you do not lay it to heart,
                              to give glory to my name, says the LORD of hosts,
                              I will send a curse upon you
                              and of your blessing I will make a curse.
                              You have turned aside from the way,
                              and have caused many to falter by your instruction;
                              you have made void the covenant of Levi,
                              says the LORD of hosts.
                              I, therefore, have made you contemptible
                              and base before all the people,
                              since you do not keep my ways,
                              but show partiality in your decisions.
                              Have we not all the one father?
                              Has not the one God created us?
                              Why then do we break faith with one another,
                              violating the covenant of our fathers?
                              Responsorial Psalm
                              Ps 131:1, 2, 3
                              R. In you, Lord, I have found my peace.
                              O LORD, my heart is not proud,
                              nor are my eyes haughty;
                              I busy not myself with great things,
                              nor with things too sublime for me.
                              R. In you, Lord, I have found my peace.
                              Nay rather, I have stilled and quieted
                              my soul like a weaned child.
                              Like a weaned child on its mother’s lap,
                              so is my soul within me.
                              R. In you, Lord, I have found my peace.
                              O Israel, hope in the LORD,
                              both now and forever.
                              R. In you, Lord, I have found my peace.
                              Reading 2
                              1 Thes 2:7b-9, 13
                              Brothers and sisters:
                              We were gentle among you, as a nursing mother cares for her children.
                              With such affection for you, we were determined to share with you
                              not only the gospel of God, but our very selves as well,
                              so dearly beloved had you become to us.
                              You recall, brothers and sisters, our toil and drudgery.
                              Working night and day in order not to burden any of you,
                              we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.

                              And for this reason we too give thanks to God unceasingly,

                              that, in receiving the word of God from hearing us,
                              you received not a human word but, as it truly is, the word of God,
                              which is now at work in you who believe.

                              Alleluia
                              Mt 23:9b, 10b
                              R. Alleluia, alleluia.
                              You have but one Father in heaven
                              and one master, the Christ.
                              R. Alleluia, alleluia.
                              Gospel
                              Mt 23:1-12
                              Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying,
                              “The scribes and the Pharisees
                              have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.
                              Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,
                              but do not follow their example.
                              For they preach but they do not practice.
                              They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry
                              and lay them on people’s shoulders,
                              but they will not lift a finger to move them.
                              All their works are performed to be seen.
                              They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.
                              They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues,
                              greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’
                              As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’
                              You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers.
                              Call no one on earth your father;
                              you have but one Father in heaven.
                              Do not be called ‘Master’;
                              you have but one master, the Christ.
                              The greatest among you must be your servant.
                              Whoever exalts himself will be humbled;
                              but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

                              The post Following God Our Father, Master and Guide, Thirty-First Sunday (A), November 5, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

                              26 min
                            • Setting Resolutions to Live a Eucharistic Life, Parish Eucharistic Revival for St. Anthony of Padua Parish, Hillsdale, MI, November 4, 2023

                              Fr. Roger J. Landry

                              St. Anthony of Padua Parish, Hillsdale, MI
                              Parish Day of Recollection: “Working for the Food that Endures to Eternal Life: A Parish Eucharistic Revival”
                              November 4, 2023

                              https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.4.23_Resolutions_1.mp3

                              The post Setting Resolutions to Live a Eucharistic Life, Parish Eucharistic Revival for St. Anthony of Padua Parish, Hillsdale, MI, November 4, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

                              5 min
                            • Eucharistic Apostolate: Infectiously Drawing Others to Eucharistic Faith, Love, and Life, Parish Eucharistic Revival for St. Anthony of Padua Parish, Hillsdale, MI, November 4, 2023

                              Fr. Roger J. Landry

                              St. Anthony of Padua Parish, Hillsdale, MI
                              Parish Day of Recollection: “Working for the Food that Endures to Eternal Life: A Parish Eucharistic Revival”
                              November 4, 2023

                              https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.4.23_Eucharistic_Apostolate_1.mp3

                              The post Eucharistic Apostolate: Infectiously Drawing Others to Eucharistic Faith, Love, and Life, Parish Eucharistic Revival for St. Anthony of Padua Parish, Hillsdale, MI, November 4, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

                              46 min

                            About Catholic Preaching

                            From the publisher's feed

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

                            More shows like Catholic Preaching

                            Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies by Bishop Robert Barron

                            Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

                            4,972 Listeners

                            Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz by Ascension

                            Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz

                            6,229 Listeners

                            The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture by Bishop Robert Barron

                            The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture

                            5,717 Listeners

                            The Thomistic Institute by The Thomistic Institute

                            The Thomistic Institute

                            809 Listeners

                            St. Josemaria Institute Podcast by St. Josemaria Institute

                            St. Josemaria Institute Podcast

                            597 Listeners

                            First Things Podcast by First Things

                            First Things Podcast

                            717 Listeners

                            Pints With Aquinas by Matt Fradd

                            Pints With Aquinas

                            6,749 Listeners

                            All Things Catholic with Dr. Edward Sri by Ascension

                            All Things Catholic with Dr. Edward Sri

                            1,354 Listeners

                            The Counsel of Trent by Catholic Answers

                            The Counsel of Trent

                            2,615 Listeners

                            Catholic Daily Reflections by My Catholic Life!

                            Catholic Daily Reflections

                            555 Listeners

                            Every Knee Shall Bow (Your Catholic Evangelization Podcast) by Ascension

                            Every Knee Shall Bow (Your Catholic Evangelization Podcast)

                            839 Listeners

                            Godsplaining by Dominican Friars Province of St. Joseph

                            Godsplaining

                            1,276 Listeners

                            Catholic Saints by Augustine Institute

                            Catholic Saints

                            1,214 Listeners

                            Catholic Bible Study by Augustine Institute

                            Catholic Bible Study

                            779 Listeners

                            Chris Stefanick Catholic Show by Chris Stefanick | Real Life Catholic

                            Chris Stefanick Catholic Show

                            443 Listeners