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By Father Roger LandryReligion & Spirituality Christianity

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October 18, 2023Making Known, like St. Luke, the Glorious Splendors of Christ’s Kingdom, Feast of St. Luke, October 18, 2023
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Feast of St. Luke, Evangelist
October 18, 2023
2 Tim 4:10-17, Ps 145, Lk 10:1-9

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.18.23_Homily_1.mp3

The following text guided today’s homily:
Today, on the feast of St. Luke the Evangelist, it’s worthwhile to ponder the life of this secondary author of a quarter of the entire New Testament. He was a young doctor, very likely in Antioch in Syria. St. Paul calls him a “beloved physician” (Col 4:14). At some point, however — it seems to have occurred at Troas — he began to accompany St. Paul, based on when he started to use the word “we” in the Acts of the Apostles (16:11). He gave up his medical career in order to become a “co-worker” (Philemon 24) of St. Paul. He loyally stayed with St. Paul until the end, being the sole coworker in prison in Rome with the apostle at the end of his life when St. Paul wrote his second letter to St. Timothy, today’s first reading. There’s no indication at all that he was a leading light during St. Paul’s missionary journeys. He was simply a companion and a helper. But after St. Paul died, he wrote down for a friend — “Theophilos,” who could have been one person, or could have stood for all of us, as a “God-lover” — what he remembered. Little did St. Luke know when he was writing his orderly account for Theophilos that billions of people would eventually read it. As a continuation of the 72 lay “non-apostle evangelizers” Jesus sent out in the Gospel, St. Luke just wanted to share the faith — and God did the rest. “Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us,” he wrote in the introduction to the Gospel that bears his name, “I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilos, so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.” Then he continued the story with a second book, a sequel, about how the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles and the early Church to continue Jesus’ mission, what eventually became entitled the Acts of the Apostles.
St. Luke wanted to write things down so that we would be certain about the things of the faith. Without his efforts, so many aspects of Jesus’ teaching we may never have learned. We wouldn’t know the details about John the Baptist’s conception and birth or the drama of the scenes of the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple and the Finding of Jesus in the Temple. We wouldn’t know of the beautiful scene of the raising of the only son of the widow of Nain. We wouldn’t know of today’s Gospel and the mission of the seventy-two disciples. We wouldn’t have entered Bethany with Jesus to hear Jesus’ words to Martha and Mary about choosing the better part and the one thing necessary. We wouldn’t have the Parable of the Good Samaritan. We wouldn’t have the scene of the healing of the ten lepers, the encounter with Zacchaeus, Jesus’ interrogation by Herod, or two of Jesus’ seven last words. We wouldn’t have the scene of Emmaus, which is in some sense summarizes all that Jesus continues to want to do in the Church. So today we thank God for the great gift that he has given us through the faithful cooperation of the beloved physician who became St. Paul’s coworker faithfully to the end.
But we should focus in a particular way about how his “orderly account” is all about how Christ has come as the Divine Physician to share his healing mercy with us. In Zechariah’s Benedictus the point is how the “Lord … has visited and brought redemption to his people,” has come “to show mercy to our fathers” and how John would “go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give his people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God by which the daybreak from on high will visit us to shine on those who sit in darkness and death’s shadow, to guide our feet into the path of peace.” We see a similar expression of mercy in Mary’s Magnificat, where Mary exclaims that God’s “mercy is from age to age to those who fear him” and that he has “helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to his promise to our fathers.” We see his mercy in his tender care for the widow of Nain, in his love for the woman in Simon the Pharisee’s house who loved much because she had been forgiven much, as Jesus illustrated in a summary of the Parable of the Two Debtors he said to Simon. We see his mercy in the Parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin and the Lost Son, all unique to Luke. We see the importance of mercy in the blithe omissions of the rich man with Lazarus at his gates. We see Jesus’ will to forgive seen in the scenes with the grateful leper, with Zacchaeus, and with the Good Thief. We hear it in his crying out from Calvary, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Many scholars of the third Gospel have said that St. Luke’s orderly account is entirely directed toward expressing the Lord’s mercy, helping us see our need for it, and encouraging us to come to receive it. The earthly physician wrote his account to show the mercy and healing of the Divine Physician.
On this day, we can’t stop at merely venerating St. Luke and thanking God for him and for his orderly account. God wants us in our own way to become St. Lukes to our age. No matter what our profession, God wants us to accompany him and his apostles. He wants us first to become their coworkers. But then having learned from them, he wants us to use whatever skills we have to pass on the faith. In the Responsorial Psalm, we prayed, “Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom.” God’s “faithful ones bless” him, they “discourse of the glory of [his] kingdom and speak of [his] power.” If we’re truly friends of God, then we can’t help but speak of him to the Theophiloi of our own day. Pope Francis had a beautiful passage in his exhortation on the “Joy of the Gospel” in which he said, “What kind of love would not feel the need to speak of the beloved, to point him out, to make him known?” He added that we’re convinced from “personal experience that it is not the same thing to have known Jesus as not to have known him, not the same thing to walk with him as to walk blindly, not the same thing to hear his word as not to know it, and not the same thing to contemplate him, to worship him, to find our peace in him, as not to. …We know well that with Jesus life becomes richer and that with him it is easier to find meaning in everything. This is why we evangelize.” On this feast of St. Luke, it’s important for us, as friends of Jesus, to seek to make him known and loved, to speak of his splendor, of his love, of his grace, and the difference it makes in our life.
How do we do that? We do it through ordinary means. We do it through our conversation with fellow students, family, friends, coworkers and strangers. We do it through writing, as St. Luke did, in letters to others, or emails, articles, or books. We do it through phone calls, Skype and Zoom conversations. We do it with the means and circumstances God has given us. But we do it with a certain tone. We are all among the 12 and the 72. Jesus’ instructions in today’s Gospel are important. He tells us that there’s a certain “envelope” for the “letter” of good news we’re bringing to people. He says that we have to be walking the walk, enfleshing what we proclaim for it to be credible. He says, “Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals. … Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’ … Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you. … Do not move about from one house to another. … Cure the sick in it and say, ‘The Kingdom of God is at hand for you.’” Jesus’ essential point in these instructions is that we can’t be preaching about God’s providence and living the first beatitude — “blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God” — if we’re carrying around money bags and worrying about provisions. We can’t preach his peace unless we’re living with that peace. We can’t preach that God loves everyone infinitely if we’re constantly looking for better accommodations. We can’t be preaching the good news unless we realize that all of it, in fact, is good news. What Jesus is basically communicating is that if we’re going to proclaim the Kingdom, we need to do so first in our body language so that our words will be credible. We’ve got to be living in the kingdom if we’re ever going to invite others effectively to enter into it with us. This is something that St. Luke grasped and wrote about. His was a faithful friend of the Lord, extolling the glorious splendor of that Kingdom and through his writing inviting how many millions of others over the last 2,000 years to respond to the King’s invitation.
In St. Luke’s orderly account of Jesus’ saving life, he made sure to include a lengthy description of the Last Supper. Like Matthew and Mark, he described Jesus’ meticulous preparations and how he “took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me,’” and how he then took the cup after they had eaten and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you.” (Lk 22:19-20). But St. Luke was the only one to record what Jesus said at the beginning of the celebration of the Eucharist, “I have eagerly to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Lk 22:15). Jesus has indeed eagerly desired to eat this Passover with us, to fill us with himself. May we receive this Eucharist as fruitfully as St. Luke used to receive Jesus’ body and blood from the hands of St. Paul and the other early apostles. May we investigate everything about Jesus accurately and anew and then use all the talents we have to make known the glorious splendor of his kingdom, especially through the way we live in his kingdom and the way we give an orderly account of this good news to all those who will receive our letters, emails, phone calls, dinner invitations and door knocks. And who knows, maybe billions of people in 2,000 years will be praising God for what we’ve done in passing on to others the most glorious splendor of all!

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 2 tm 4:10-17b
Beloved:
Demas, enamored of the present world,
deserted me and went to Thessalonica,
Crescens to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia.
Luke is the only one with me.
Get Mark and bring him with you,
for he is helpful to me in the ministry.
I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus.
When you come, bring the cloak I left with Carpus in Troas,
the papyrus rolls, and especially the parchments.
Alexander the coppersmith did me a great deal of harm;
the Lord will repay him according to his deeds.
You too be on guard against him,
for he has strongly resisted our preaching.
At my first defense no one appeared on my behalf,
but everyone deserted me.
May it not be held against them!
But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength,
so that through me the proclamation might be completed
and all the Gentiles might hear it.
Responsorial Psalm ps 145:10-11, 12-13, 17-18
R. (12) Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your Kingdom.
Let all your works give you thanks, O LORD,
and let your faithful ones bless you.
Let them discourse of the glory of your Kingdom
and speak of your might.
R. Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your Kingdom.
Making known to men your might
and the glorious splendor of your Kingdom.
Your Kingdom is a Kingdom for all ages,
and your dominion endures through all generations.
R. Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your Kingdom.
The LORD is just in all his ways
and holy in all his works.
The LORD is near to all who call upon him,
to all who call upon him in truth.
R. Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your Kingdom.
Gospel lk 10:1-9
The Lord Jesus appointed seventy-two disciples
whom he sent ahead of him in pairs
to every town and place he intended to visit.
He said to them,
“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few;
so ask the master of the harvest
to send out laborers for his harvest.
Go on your way;
behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.
Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals;
and greet no one along the way.
Into whatever house you enter,
first say, ‘Peace to this household.’
If a peaceful person lives there,
your peace will rest on him;
but if not, it will return to you.
Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you,
for the laborer deserves payment.
Do not move about from one house to another.
Whatever town you enter and they welcome you,
eat what is set before you,
cure the sick in it and say to them,
‘The Kingdom of God is at hand for you.’”
The post Making Known, like St. Luke, the Glorious Splendors of Christ’s Kingdom, Feast of St. Luke, October 18, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
16 min
October 17, 2023Unashamed of the Gospel, like Jesus, Paul and Ignatius, 28th Tuesday (I), October 17, 2023
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Tuesday of the 28th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr
October 17, 2023
Rom 1:16-25, Ps 19, Lk 11:37-41

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.17.23_Homily_1.mp3

The following points were attempted during the homily:
“I am not ashamed of the Gospel,” St. Paul emphatically tells the Romans at the beginning of today’s epistle. Those are very strong words for someone who, at a human level, might have had many reasons to be shamefaced and silent about the Gospel. After all he was scourged, beaten with rods stoned, shipwrecked, ambushed, hunted down and imprisoned on account of the Gospel. He was crisscrossing the globe to preach — preposterously to many of the age — that a publicly executed carpenter from an obscure village not only had risen the dead and was alive but was also the Lord and Son of God. Jesus’ crucifixion, he knew, was a laughing stock for Greeks and, if he really were the Messiah, an embarrassing scandal for Jews. But despite it all, he stressed that he was not ashamed of the Gospel, in all its paradoxical details, because he knew that, however improbable it might seem to human wisdom, it was in fact the power and wisdom of God.
It’s important that we confront and with God’s grace overcome any embarrassment we have over our faith. There are many in the Church who are ashamed of the Gospel. In the context of an aggressive secularism that is pushing hedonism, materialism, individualism, and rationalistic empiricism, and often mocks Church teaching as the morality of unenlightened, antediluvian cavemen, many feel somewhat humiliated to give witness to their Catholic faith. Many Catholics have been made to feel that the Gospel is not only “bad news,” but on occasion even ridiculous. Catholics after all believe that we adore and eat God himself in Holy Communion, even though to the world all we’re doing is consuming cheap bread and wine. We believe, according to Jesus’ own words, that the path of happiness is spiritual poverty instead of riches, purity instead of sexual profligacy, spiritual hunger instead of satiety, meekness instead of strength, and persecution instead of popularity. We believe in praying for persecutors, forgiving those who hate us seventy times seven times, and turning the other cheek. We believe that we shouldn’t commit even the slightest sin even if we were able to win the whole world.
And then we get to the really controversial issues today. We believe that the Pope is infallible — he cannot make a mistake, ever — on something that he teaches to be definitively held by all the faithful on something we need to be (faith) or do (morals) to please God and enter into his life. We believe that even though men and women are equal in dignity before God, only men are capable of being ordained priests.We believe that not even rape and incest victims should morally be able to take the lives of the unwanted children growing within them. We believe that everyone should remain chaste and sexually abstinent until marriage, and that all sex outside of marriage is sinful. We believe that even though almost everyone, including Catholic married couples, use some form of contraception at some point in their marriages, that it is still wrong. We profess to love those with same-sex attractions while at the same time saying that they should never, ever be able to act on those attractions by engaging in same-sex sexual activity. We believe that God really did make us male or female and that there aren’t 54 or 71 or more genders. These are among the issues that make many members of Christ’s flock sheepish with regard to living and sharing the faith. It’s often some priests, religious and Catholics professionally involved in education that are among the most ashamed. One of the great dramas taking place in the Church today, I’m convinced, is about whether we’re ashamed of Jesus’ teaching about the meaning and indissolubility of marriage or whether we think it’s part of the truth that sets people free, part of the Gospel that, although hard to live in circumstances, is meant to bring us to God and fill us with joy.
St. Paul was not ashamed of the Gospel and his example is an inspiration to all Catholics. After describing his holy pride and confidence in the Gospel that is the “power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes,” he went on to tackle straight on many of the contemporary ideas that made those in Rome consider the faith farcical. He dissected the “impiety and wickedness” found in those who deny God even though creation would make no sense without a creator anymore than a wooden chair would make sense without a carpenter. He described the foolishness of pagan worship, which exchanges God’s glory to adore statues of birds, snakes or savage quadrupeds. He mentioned the slavery of those who gave in through the lust of their hearts for the “mutual degradation of their bodies,” worshipping the creature instead of the Creator. In all of these cases, as G.K. Chesterton once quipped, “When a man stops believing in God, he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes anything.”
Jesus himself sought to teach us by his own example how not to be ashamed of the Gospel. In the midst of an encounter in which his Pharisaical host wanted to make him feel guilty for not having washed his hands, Jesus used it as an example to teach us about how to cleanse our insides, by giving of ourselves totally to living the Gospel as generously as Jesus did. He says that we become pure on the inside by almsgiving, which means not just giving a dollar to a poor person or a quarter of a million to the Society of the Propagation of the Faith, but by giving of ourselves in love to God and others. It means like St. Paul giving ourselves together with the Gospel and not being ashamed of doing either, even if no one else is doing so besides Jesus. The path to purity of heart, to cleaning our insides, is a truly Eucharistic life in which we receive Jesus’ total self-gift and say, in return, this is my body, my blood, my sweat, my flesh given out of love for you.
Today we celebrate a saint who was not ashamed of the Gospel. St. Ignatius of Antioch is one of the greatest human beings who has ever lived. He showed his holy craziness, his confidence in the Gospel as the power of salvation for those who believe in his life, as he was describing how he wanted to become pure alms to be given to God and to make up what was lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body, the Church. As we read this morning in the breviary from his letter to the Christians in Rome, he said, “No earthly pleasures, no kingdoms of this world can benefit me in any way. I prefer death in Christ Jesus to power over the farthest limits of the earth. He who died in place of us is the one object of my quest. He who rose for our sakes is my one desire.” He wasn’t ashamed to die ignominiously in the eyes of the world for the sake of Christ who had died for him. He was willing to deny himself, pick up his Cross, and follow Christ through death to life. He didn’t fear death in the least, as if life in this world were more important than life in the next. He wrote, “I am writing to all the churches to let it be known that I will gladly die for God if only you do not stand in my way. I plead with you: show me no untimely kindness. Let me be food for the wild beasts, for they are my way to God. I am God’s wheat and shall be ground by their teeth so that I may become Christ’s pure bread. Pray to Christ for me that the animals will be the means of making me a sacrificial victim for God. … The time for my birth is close at hand. Forgive me, my brothers. Do not stand in the way of my birth to real life; do not wish me stillborn. My desire is to belong to God. Do not, then, hand me back to the world. Do not try to tempt me with material things. Let me attain pure light. Only on my arrival there can I be fully a human being. Give me the privilege of imitating the passion of my God. If you have him in your heart, you will understand what I wish.” He was aware of the draw of the prince of this world and the spirits of disobedience seeking to draw him to deny the Gospel, to deny Christ. “The prince of this world is determined to lay hold of me and to undermine my will which is intent on God. Let none of you here help him; instead show yourselves on my side, which is also God’s side. Do not talk about Jesus Christ as long as you love this world. Do not harbour envious thoughts. And supposing I should see you, if then I should beg you to intervene on my behalf, do not believe what I say. Believe instead what I am now writing to you. For though I am alive as I write to you, still my real desire is to die. My love of this life has been crucified, and there is no yearning in me for any earthly thing. Rather within me is the living water which says deep inside me: ‘Come to the Father.’ I no longer take pleasure in perishable food or in the delights of this world. I want only God’s bread, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, formed of the seed of David, and for drink I crave his blood, which is love that cannot perish. I am no longer willing to live a merely human life. … Pray for me that I may obtain my desire. I have not written to you as a mere man would, but as one who knows the mind of God.” He saw his martyrdom as the time he would become a Christian not just in name but in deed.
St. Ignatius drew his strength from the Eucharist. He saw his life, as we just noted, as being ground into wheat so that he could become in Christ pure bread, united and transubstantiated in the Eucharistic sacrifice. He called Jesus in the Eucharist God’s great gift and the medicine of immorality, given for the forgiveness of sins, which makes real and eternal life possible. We don’t need lions to grind us into wheat; we have ordinary life. But all of that is meant to be a preparation for this sacrifice.
The devil ultimately wants to make us ashamed of our faith, ashamed of Jesus, and ashamed of the reality of the Eucharist, such that, as we discussed yesterday, we treat Jesus in the Sacrament of his Love with indifference, irreverence, coldness, sacrilege and the scorn of shame. Jesus wants us to be humbly proud of him, to see the Eucharist as an incredible gift, to live Eucharistic lives as he did and then to share it with others who still worship false gods that cannot save. This is the greatest way in which we, following St. Paul in today’s first reading, may show our boast in God and respond by according the Lord glory as God and giving him thanks. May the Lord strengthen us and the whole Church to be justly proud and grateful for every part of the Good News and give us the courage and love to share it with everyone so that their lives might similarly be filled with the “power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.”

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1
ROM 1:16-25
Brothers and sisters:
I am not ashamed of the Gospel.
It is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes:
for Jew first, and then Greek.
For in it is revealed the righteousness of God from faith to faith;
as it is written, “The one who is righteous by faith will live.”
The wrath of God is indeed being revealed from heaven
against every impiety and wickedness
of those who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
For what can be known about God is evident to them,
because God made it evident to them.
Ever since the creation of the world,
his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity
have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.
As a result, they have no excuse;
for although they knew God
they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks.
Instead, they became vain in their reasoning,
and their senseless minds were darkened.
While claiming to be wise, they became fools
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God
for the likeness of an image of mortal man
or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes.
Therefore, God handed them over to impurity
through the lusts of their hearts
for the mutual degradation of their bodies.
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie
and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator,
who is blessed forever. Amen.
Responsorial Psalm
PS 19:2-3, 4-5
R. (2a) The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day pours out the word to day,
and night to night imparts knowledge.
R. The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
Not a word nor a discourse
whose voice is not heard;
Through all the earth their voice resounds,
and to the ends of the world, their message.
R. The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
Gospel
LK 11:37-41
After Jesus had spoken,
a Pharisee invited him to dine at his home.
He entered and reclined at table to eat.
The Pharisee was amazed to see
that he did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal.
The Lord said to him, “Oh you Pharisees!
Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish,
inside you are filled with plunder and evil.
You fools!
Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside?
But as to what is within, give alms,
and behold, everything will be clean for you.”
The post Unashamed of the Gospel, like Jesus, Paul and Ignatius, 28th Tuesday (I), October 17, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
17 min
October 16, 2023Responding Aright to the Greater than Jonah and Solomon, 28th Monday (I), October 16, 2023
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Monday of the 28th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of St. Margaret Mary
October 16, 2023
Rom 1:1-7, Ps 98, Lk 11:29-32

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.16.23_Homily_1.mp3

The following points were attempted in the homily:
One of the real dangers in the spiritual life, especially those who are always around the sacred, is to begin to take the sacred for granted because of routine. Today’s Gospel is one of the best to help snap us out of it. Jesus reminds us that he’s a greater sign of conversion than Jonah and a greater source of wisdom than Solomon. That leads us to ask ourselves that if the pagan Ninevites totally converted at Jonah’s preaching and the Queen of Sheba was willing to travel 1660 miles each way just to hear Solomon’s wisdom, are we converting each time we come into God’s presence as profoundly as the Ninevites did and are we hanging on Christ’s words of wisdom the way the Queen of Sheba did?
St. Paul is someone who was converted entirely when he encountered Christ, spent 14 years in the desert of Arabia seeking to learn Christ’s wisdom in prayer and then spent the rest of his life trying to bring people to conversion and to enrich the Church with Christ’s wisdom. In today’s first reading we begin four weeks meditating on his greatest theological treatise, written not so much in response to questions or problems in a community he had founded (like in so many other letters) but to a community he had never visited, proposing what were in his mind answers to the biggest questions they probably would have, about how to be right with God, about the status of the Jews, and about authentic Christian spirituality. Today he describes himself to the Romans and what he was hoping to do. He says that he is a “slave of Christ Jesus,” serving him as Lord, was “called to be an apostle,” and was consecrated or “set apart for the Gospel.” His mission was to bring about the “obedience of faith” in those “called to belong to Jesus Christ” and “called to be holy.” When we truly believe, that faith impacts our life. When we believe in Christ, we convert from our own ways and seek to live as he lives, structuring our whole life not on earthly wisdom but his wisdom. When we grasp Christ, and treat him as Lord, we, too, become living, loving, “slaves” of Christ Jesus (instead of sin) because that is paradoxically the path to true freedom, since the truth of his wisdom sets us free.
Today the Church celebrates the feast of someone who can help us to convert like the Ninevites and seek to align ourselves with God’s incarnate wisdom far more than the Queen of Sheba. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, like so many of the saints, is a wonderful illustration of the obedience of faith. To follow her vocation was hard. After the death of her father when she was a young girl, she and her mother were abused by in-laws. She suffered because of an ulcer on her leg for five years. She suffered from opposition to her vocation. She suffered from various Visitation nuns inside the convent. But she was obedient in faith to Jesus and clung to him on the Cross and Jesus chose her to be his instrument — beginning 350 years ago this December — to reveal to us the love of his Sacred Heart. Like Jesus was doing in today’s Gospel, he through her sought to wake us up to the greatness of the gift we have. He told St. Margaret Mary that he had exhausted himself out of love for us, but from “most” he received only indifference, irreverence, coldness, sacrilege and scorn toward his presence in what he called the “sacrament of love,” the Eucharist. He said he was particularly pained that those consecrated to him treated him in this way. What he wants from us instead of indifference is to make him in the Eucharist the biggest difference in our lives; instead of irreverence, piety; instead of coldness, passionate love; instead of sacrilege, holiness; and instead of scorn, praise. This is what St. Margaret Mary gave him and this would be the response of obedient faith. In his apparitions to St. Margaret Mary, Jesus did something very beautiful in a mystical way. He took out her heart, bathed it in the fire of his own to purify it and ignite it, and then placed it back into her. This is what Jesus wishes to do in every one of us, taking away our stony hearts and replacing them with hearts of flesh, hearts after his own, converted hearts full of his wisdom. He does that, first, when he sprinkles clean water upon us and gives us the heart transplant of baptism, prophesied by Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Then he renews it every Mass, as alluded to in the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano when the flesh of the 1200 year old miracle was shown to be human heart wall. Every Eucharist, every celebration of the sacrament of his love, we receive Jesus’ own heart as he seeks to transform us into the visible sign making efficacious his love in the world. That’s what’s need to approach him with the preference, piety, passion, praise and purity he deserves!
At every Mass, we meet the One greater than Solomon and Jonah. We hear him speak, constantly calling us to a new way of life, living as he lives. It’s here that he helps us to live up to our calling to be holy and sends us forth, like he did after his encounter with St. Paul, with the “grace of apostleship.”

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 ROM 1:1-7
Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus,
called to be an Apostle and set apart for the Gospel of God,
which he promised previously through his prophets in the holy Scriptures,
the Gospel about his Son, descended from David according to the flesh,
but established as Son of God in power
according to the Spirit of holiness
through resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Through him we have received the grace of apostleship,
to bring about the obedience of faith,
for the sake of his name, among all the Gentiles,
among whom are you also, who are called to belong to Jesus Christ;
to all the beloved of God in Rome, called to be holy.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Responsorial Psalm PS 98:1BCDE, 2-3AB, 3CD-4
R. (2a) The Lord has made known his salvation.
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 made known his salvation.
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 made known his salvation.
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 made known his salvation.
Alleluia PS 95:8
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
If today you hear his voice,
harden not your hearts.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel LK 11:29-32
While still more people gathered in the crowd, Jesus said to them,
“This generation is an evil generation;
it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it,
except the sign of Jonah.
Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites,
so will the Son of Man be to this generation.
At the judgment
the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation
and she will condemn them,
because she came from the ends of the earth
to hear the wisdom of Solomon,
and there is something greater than Solomon here.
At the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation
and condemn it,
because at the preaching of Jonah they repented,
and there is something greater than Jonah here.”
The post Responding Aright to the Greater than Jonah and Solomon, 28th Monday (I), October 16, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
21 min
October 15, 2023Dressed for the Banquet, Twenty-Eighth Sunday (A), October 15, 2023
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
October 15, 2023
Is 25:6-10, Ps 23, Phil 4:12-14.19-20, Mt 22:1-14

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.15.23_CCM_Homily_1.mp3

The following text guided the homily:
One of the biggest challenges for the Church in every age is how to keep two priorities united. The first priority is to welcome everyone. The word Catholic means universal, and we’re interested in 100 out of 100, because Jesus Christ took on our humanity, lived, preached, suffered, died and rose in order to redeem every single one of us. The second priority is to help people conform their lives fully to Christ. Jesus’ first words were, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He came to help us begin to look at everything from his reality, to believe in him, to follow him, to imitate him, to love him, to love others as he loves them, and to be holy as he is holy. Sometimes these two priorities can be in tension. During the Synod on Synodality now taking place in the Vatican, there are many who are talking, rightly, about how the Church is not meant to be an elite club for saints, but a field hospital for sinners. They mention various groups that have felt alienated from the Church, indeed often judged by many in the Church, and urge that the Church must do more to make them feel comfortable and at home. But sometimes this advocacy stops at welcoming, as if it’s enough for others just to show up. If the Church is indeed a hospital for sinners, then the Church needs to do more than warmly embrace people with smiles and lollypops in the hospital lobby. Real care, true love, involves helping people receive the healing medicine they need from Christ the Divine Physician. We could say that the mission of the Church is two-fold: to welcome everyone, yes, but then help everyone welcome Jesus at the depth he desires and deserves. St. Paul wrote to St. Timothy, Jesus “wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). He has died to save each one of us but he wants each of us to accept that gift of salvation, to know, love, and live the Truth he proclaimed and is. This two-fold reality is what today’s powerful readings are all about.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks to us about the kingdom of heaven, the invitation he has given us to join him there forever, and about how we need to respond to that invitation. He does so within the context of a parable about salvation history in which he illustrates for us, basically, how not to respond. He concludes the parable by saying, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.” We are all here tonight because we desire and hope to be numbered among the “chosen few.” Those who are chosen are not those whom God somehow arbitrarily favors over others. Those who are chosen are the ones who respond fully to having been chosen by God. Therefore, it’s key for us to pay close attention to what Jesus tells us today so that we will respond to his invitation, choose him who has chosen us, and help the “many” we know and care about to learn how to become among the chosen, too!
Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a wedding banquet a king is throwing for his son. This banquet will be the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah from the first reading: there will be a true feast where everyone present will say, “Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us! This is the Lord for whom we looked; let us rejoice and be glad for he has saved us!” God wants to invite all people to this feast, he wishes all people to come to the kingdom of heaven, but there are three parts of this parable that we need to ponder.
The first is the invitation. Jesus says that the King sent his servants to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. It’s an unbelievable response. When there’s a royal wedding, like, for example, Charles and Diana or William and Kate, it becomes one of the hottest tickets of all time. People do everything they can to get on the guest list and be present. But not in the parable. The invitees refused. When they didn’t respond the first time, the hard-working King who wanted them there gave them a second chance. He sent other servants, saying, “Tell those who have been invited: Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and my fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the feast.’” But, again, they made light of it. Jesus says one went to his farm and another to his business, too busy to reprioritize their daily affairs for the once-in-a-lifetime royal wedding. They were too self-absorbed basically to care about the king. Other invitees, Jesus says, seized the king’s servants, mistreated them and killed them. They killed the king’s heralds who were doing nothing except inviting them to the royal banquet, because not only did they not want to change their priorities, but they couldn’t handle even hearing the invitation, and so they extinguished the messenger. The servants that Jesus has been describing up until then are the prophets who had been sent by God to invite his chosen people to this feast, but, as we talked about last week in the parable of the tenant farmers, basically all of the prophets were mistreated and killed by various of the religious leaders and elders of the people receiving the invitation to communion with God.
But God kept inviting. As Pope Francis once said in an Angelus meditation on this Gospel, “Despite the lack of response from those called, God’s project wasn’t interrupted. Despite the refusal of the first invitees, he is not discouraged, he doesn’t suspend the feast, but enlarges the guest list.” The King therefore said to his servants, “The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” So the servants went out into the streets and “gathered all whom they found, both good and bad, so the wedding hall was filled with guests.” This is a key part of the mission of the Church. Beginning from the apostles down to our own day, we are sent out into the streets to invite all we find, both good and bad. Everyone is invited. The author James Joyce once described the Catholic Church with this famous expression: “Here comes everybody!” We don’t have a Church only for the good and the holy, for those of a particular economic class, for those of a special race or background. All are invited. We shouldn’t be surprised, therefore, that in the Church we find great saints and great sinners, the faithful and the hypocrites. Jesus gave two other parables — the Wheat and Weeds and the Dragnet — about this reality. All are invited; the only ones excluded are those who exclude themselves. But the invitation is supposed to change us. If we’re invited and we’re good, the privilege should spur us to become better; if we’re invited and we’re bad, the honor should provide the occasion to become honorable.
It’s good to focus on the priorities of those in the parable who turn down the invitation and the priorities of us today. Why didn’t the ones first called come to the banquet? They all excused themselves from it thinking something else was more important. As St. Luke’s Gospel reinforces (Lk 14:16-20), one used his home as an excuse, another his job, a third his family. Some show indifference, others alienation, and others violent annoyance. Notice that none of those who refused the invitation said that they wanted to go out and engage in a life of crime. No, all of them were interested in good things — caring for the home, working, and spending time with one’s spouse or family — but things that became relative evils because they prevented them from something better. When it came down to a choice between the wedding banquet and these other tasks, the wedding banquet lost. The King lost. God lost.
Earlier today in the Vatican, the Holy Father, commenting on this passage, asked, “Brothers and sisters, how many times do we fail to heed God’s invitation, because we are intent on our own affairs! Often, we struggle to havefree time, but today Jesus invites us to find the time that frees: the time to dedicate to God, that lightens and heals our hearts, that increases peace, confidence and joy in us, that saves us from evil, loneliness and loss of meaning. It is worth it, because it is good to be with the Lord, to make space for him. … Many, however, think that these things are a ‘waste of time,’ and so they lock themselves away in their private world; and … this generates sadness. How many sad hearts there are! For this reason: because they are closed. Let us ask ourselves, then,” he concluded, “how do I respond to God’s invitations? What space do I give him in my days? Does the quality of my life depend on my affairs and my free time, or on love for the Lord and for my brethren, especially those most in need?” Is God truly my priority, not just in theory but in practice. Does he come first? Do I sacrifice other things for him or sacrifice him for other things?
Many saints and preachers throughout the history of the Church the saints have applied this parable to the Mass, not just because the Mass is a banquet with the choicest food of all — the Body and Blood of the precious Lamb of God — but because it is also the foretaste of heaven. Our attitude toward God, toward heaven, toward God’s kingdom, is often shown by how we respond to the invitation Jesus makes to us of the Mass. On Holy Thursday, Jesus said, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover meal with you.” Jesus always eagerly desires to share Mass with us each Sunday. More than the greatest saints have hungered to receive the Lord in Holy Communion, the Lord desires to feed us. He wants us present at Mass more than the most loving mother in the history of the USA wants all her kids present at Thanksgiving dinner. But very often we hear the same excuses for missing Mass as are found in the parable Jesus uses: people prioritize work over God, cleaning up the house or the yard over God, family over God, sleep over God, even Sunday cartoons, political talk shows or football preview programs over God. To come to the kingdom of heaven, to be not just the many invited but the chosen few, we first need to prioritize God, to accept his invitation, to treat it as the awesome privilege it really is. One confirmation that we’re doing so is by the way we prioritize Jesus’ eager invitation to the Mass. In the United States, one of the reasons why we are in the midst of a Eucharistic Revival is because of the sad fact that only one of six Catholics invited to the feast of God on the Lord’s day responds to the invitation and comes. Just like those in the parable, most Catholics today prioritize other things. The word “Church” comes from the Greek word ekklesia, which means those having been called! Those having been invited! The Church is supposed to be characterized by those who have responded to Jesus’ invitation. The first thing we learn from this parable is that God invites everyone but that each of us needs to prioritize God over the other good and important things in life. Without that prioritization, we may not enter God’s kingdom because we’ll be too busy trying to construct our own.
The second thing we learn is about how we’re supposed to arrive when we respond to the invitation. In the parable, Jesus says, “But when the king came in to meet the guests, he noticed a man there who was not dressed in a wedding garment, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’ And the man was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”At first glance, it might seem that the King whom Jesus describes is both crazy and cruel: he commanded his servants to invite the man to the feast and then he’s picky about what he’s wearing? The truth is that in the ancient world, when kings would summon commoners to a feast, they, knowing that most would be too poor and would not have proper vesture, would normally send out the royal tailors to make proper clothing for everyone invited or otherwise provided fitting attire. It would be like a rich man today inviting homeless people to a black-tie dinner but then giving them free hotel rooms to shower and providing free tuxedos, shoes or gowns to wear. With this history, it’s not difficult to recognize why the king would be so upset about seeing this improperly attired man: he deliberated refused to wear the clothing that was required and made available. The lesson for all of us is that it’s not enough to show up. We, too, have to be properly dressed for the feast. But what clothing has been provided for us? What does God want us to wear? What apparel is fit for the banquet?
Paul describes the proper vesture in two of his epistles. In his Letter to the Colossians, he wrote, “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. … Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col 3:12-14). In the Letter to the Ephesians, he talks about our clothes as a spiritual armor: “Therefore, put on the whole armor of God: … fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph 6:11-17). It’s easy to get the picture: the wedding garments God wants us to don are weaved with acts of faith, love, hope, kindness, compassion, humility, patience, meekness, truth, holiness.
To make the image even simpler, more concrete, and more specific, God wants us to show up with the garment he himself gave us when we became his adopted children. As we were vested with our baptismal garment, the baptizing bishop, priest or deacon said to us, “You have become a new creation, and have clothed yourself in Christ. May this white garment be a sign to you of your Christian dignity. With your family and friends to help you by word and example, bring it unstained into eternal life.” Christ himself is meant to be our garment! We are to be clothed in him, in his risen life. As long as we live in him and vest ourselves in his virtues, then we will always be ready and unstained for eternal life. To talk about arriving properly dressed means we’re adorned in our baptismal graces, we’re living the life with Christ that flows from our baptism, we’ve chosen a moral and holy life, rejecting Satan, his empty promises and evil works and living by faith in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in communion with the saints.
So the Church is not only “Here comes everybody!,” in which all people are invited, but also a tailor that seeks to help everyone to dress appropriately, to “put on” and adorn ourselves with Jesus Christ (Rom 13:14). Everyone is both welcome and summoned to change clothes so that their soul sparkles with the brilliance of their white baptismal garment. Many are invited but not everyone chooses to take advantage of the Lord’s help through his Church to change their vesture. In the Book of Revelation, there’s an image of what it takes to get to the banquet of the kingdom of heaven. We see a “great multitude [of saints] that no one could count from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb.’” St. John is told, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” The way God cleanses our garments and makes them white is through Jesus’ blood, which is, paradoxically, the most powerful bleach ever known. But we need to be humble to let him do it, and it’s in the Sacrament of Reconciliation that Jesus wants to bathe us in that cleansing detergent that can wipe out even the darkest stains. That’s what we need to do to clean the garment of our soul so that we are always ready for the banquet. To receive the invitation to eternal life but to respond without conversion, without change, without even wanting to show up with our baptismal garment full of Christ’s virtues, is to fail to acknowledge the dignity of the King, of the banquet and of the invitation. And there’s a very important reason for this: we’re ultimately not just meant to be guests at the wedding feast, but the Bride. That’s why the King so much wants all of us there for his Son. To refuse the invitation is equivalent to standing Christ the Bridegroom up at the altar; to show up improperly dressed, however, is like a bride showing up with sweatpants to her own royal wedding. God give us the clothing to wear and wants us to have the humility, dignity and love to wear it.
The third and last lesson Jesus teaches us in this parable is about sharing the faith with others. Just like the prophets, just like the apostles, so we, too, have a role as God’s servants in calling everyone to the feast and helping them to get dressed for it. That’s our task in the world, the continuation of Jesus’ mission. We want our family members to get to heaven. We want our friends, neighbors, fellow students, coworkers, even strangers and those who persecute us to come to heaven. But we need to correspond with God’s work, let others know of the invitation, help them to say yes to it, and then assist them to get ready. The Lord does not just want us to respond to his invitation and show up properly vested, but he wants us to go out to crossroads to invite others.
One clear application of the lessons of this parable is to the Synod on Synodality taking place in the Vatican. As Pope Francis has emphasized, the Synodal Church he seeks must live what the Church at her best has always sought to be, the continuation of Christ’s mission inviting everyone, including and especially those on the peripheries of existence. The King of Kings wants to exclude no one and invite everyone. But as today’s parable makes clear, the Church is not meant to be a come-as-you-go affair. As the King seeks to welcome everyone to the banquet — those who up until that point were good and others who were bad — he wants all to convert, all to get dressed, all to welcome him fully in return. There are some who dream of a Church that welcomes everyone but converts no one, who, rather than helping people become the saints to which their baptism summons them, just want to ignore their sins and even attempt to bless those sins. Because God loves each of us sinners, however, he wants to free us not just from the consequences of our sins but from our sins themselves. But we have to take off our dirty clothes and put on anew our baptismal garments, living in communion with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit who is holy, holy, holy. Let’s pray that the Synod will help the whole Church live out the full meaning of today’s parable in the great two-fold mission Christ has entrusted us.
“Come to the Feast,” the King in the Parable tells us today. He says it both about the Mass and about heaven. If we put God first, respond to his invitation in life by coming to the new and eternal Passover he eagerly desires to eat with us, arrive well-prepared and well-dressed, and seek to invite others to join us, we can be confident that we will be ready to greet him whenever he comes to call us to the eternal nuptial feast. The more we arrive at Mass with readiness, joy and a clean wedding garment full of virtues and the love of God, the greater our preparation for eternity. It’s here that we say to Jesus, “Behold our God to whom we looked to save us. This is the Lord for whom we looked; let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us.” It’s here where he spreads the table before us and seeks to guide through through dark valleys on right paths. It’s here that we realize what St. Paul said in today’s second reading, that we can do all things in him who strengthens us, including pluck out eyes or chop off hands and feet if they separate us from Christ. It’s here we grasp that God indeed supplies whatever we need in accord with the glorious riches in Christ Jesus. The Eucharist is the greatest source of strength and wealth along our pilgrim way. Responding to Jesus’ invitation and receiving him worthily is the best means to be numbered among the “chosen few” who will say, in the words of King David from today’s responsorial psalm, “I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” Blessed, indeed, are those called to the Supper of the Lamb!
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1
Is 25:6-10a
On this mountain the LORD of hosts
will provide for all peoples
a feast of rich food and choice wines,
juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.
On this mountain he will destroy
the veil that veils all peoples,
the web that is woven over all nations;
he will destroy death forever.
The Lord GOD will wipe away
the tears from every face;
the reproach of his people he will remove
from the whole earth; for the LORD has spoken.
On that day it will be said:
“Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us!
This is the LORD for whom we looked;
let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!”
For the hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6
R. (6cd) I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
In verdant pastures he gives me repose;
beside restful waters he leads me;
he refreshes my soul.
R. I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
He guides me in right paths
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk in the dark valley
I fear no evil; for you are at my side
with your rod and your staff
that give me courage.
R. I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
You spread the table before me
in the sight of my foes;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
R. I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
Only goodness and kindness follow me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
for years to come.
R. I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
Reading 2
Phil 4:12-14, 19-20
Brothers and sisters:
I know how to live in humble circumstances;
I know also how to live with abundance.
In every circumstance and in all things
I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry,
of living in abundance and of being in need.
I can do all things in him who strengthens me.
Still, it was kind of you to share in my distress.My God will fully supply whatever you need,
in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
To our God and Father, glory forever and ever. Amen.
Alleluia
Cf. Eph 1:17-18
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
enlighten the eyes of our hearts,
so that we may know what is the hope
that belongs to our call.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Mt 22:1-14
Jesus again in reply spoke to the chief priests and elders of the people
in parables, saying,
“The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who gave a wedding feast for his son.
He dispatched his servants
to summon the invited guests to the feast,
but they refused to come.
A second time he sent other servants, saying,
‘Tell those invited: “Behold, I have prepared my banquet,
my calves and fattened cattle are killed,
and everything is ready; come to the feast.”‘
Some ignored the invitation and went away,
one to his farm, another to his business.
The rest laid hold of his servants,
mistreated them, and killed them.
The king was enraged and sent his troops,
destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.
Then he said to his servants, ‘The feast is ready,
but those who were invited were not worthy to come.
Go out, therefore, into the main roads
and invite to the feast whomever you find.’
The servants went out into the streets
and gathered all they found, bad and good alike,
and the hall was filled with guests.
But when the king came in to meet the guests,
he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.
The king said to him, ‘My friend, how is it
that you came in here without a wedding garment?’
But he was reduced to silence.
Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet,
and cast him into the darkness outside,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’
Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
The post Dressed for the Banquet, Twenty-Eighth Sunday (A), October 15, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
30 min
October 15, 2023Responding to God’s Invitation and Getting Properly Dressed, Twenty-Eighth Sunday (A), October 15, 2023
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, New York
Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
October 15, 2023
Is 25:6-10, Ps 23, Phil 4:12-14.19-20, Mt 22:1-14

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.15.23_MCs_Homily_1.mp3

The following text guided the homily:
In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks to us about the kingdom of heaven, the invitation he has given us to join him there forever, and about how we need to respond to that invitation. He does so within the context of a parable about salvation history in which he illustrates for us, basically, how not to respond. He concludes the parable by saying, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.” We are all here, with our respective vocations, because we desire and hope to be numbered among the “chosen few.” Those who are chosen are not those whom God somehow arbitrarily favors over others. Those who are chosen are the ones who respond fully to having been chosen by God. Therefore, it’s important for us to pay close attention to what Jesus tells us today so that we will respond to his invitation, choose him who has chosen us, and help the “many” we know also learn how to become among the chosen as well!
Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a wedding banquet a king is throwing for his son. This banquet will be the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah from the first reading: there will be a true feast where everyone present will say, “Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us! This is the Lord for whom we looked; let us rejoice and be glad for he has saved us!” God wants to invite all people to this feast, he wishes all people to be saved, but there are three parts of this parable that we need to ponder:
The first is the invitation. Jesus says that the King sent his servants to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. It’s an unbelievable response. When there’s a royal wedding, like, for example, Charles and Diana or William and Kate, it becomes one of the hottest tickets of all time. People do everything they can to come. But not in the parable. The invitees refused. When they didn’t respond the first time, the hard-working King who wanted them there gave them a second chance. He sent other servants, saying, “Tell those who have been invited: Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and my fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the feast.’” But, again, they made light of it. Jesus says one went to his farm and another to his business, too busy to reprioritize their daily affairs for the once-in-a-lifetime royal wedding. They were too self-absorbed to care about the king. Other invitees, Jesus says, seized the king’s servants, mistreated them and killed them. They killed the king’s heralds who were doing nothing to them except inviting them to the royal banquet, because not only did they not want to change their priorities, but they couldn’t handle even hearing the invitation, and so they extinguished the messenger. The servants that Jesus has been describing up until then are the prophets who had been sent by God to invite his chosen people to this feast, but, as we talked about last week in the parable of the tenant farmers, all of the prophets were mistreated and killed by some of the religious leaders and elders of the people receiving the invitation to communion with God. Only some, like obviously the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, the Apostles and those women and men who became Jesus’ disciples, responded to Jesus’ invitation.
But God kept inviting. As Pope Francis once said in an Angelus meditation on this Gospel, “Despite the lack of response from those called, God’s project wasn’t interrupted. Despite the refusal of the first invitees, he is not discouraged, he doesn’t suspend the feast, but enlarges the guest list.” The King said to his servants, “The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” The servants went out into the streets and “gathered all whom they found, both good and bad,” Jesus says in the parable, “so the wedding hall was filled with guests.” This is the mission of the Church. Beginning from the apostles down to our own day, we are sent out into the streets to invite all we find, both good and bad. Everyone is invited. The author James Joyce once described the Catholic Church with this famous expression: “Here comes everybody!” We don’t have a Church only for the good and the holy, for those of a particular economic class, for those of a special race or background. All are invited. We shouldn’t be surprised, therefore, that in the Church we find great saints and great sinners, the faithful and the hypocrites. Jesus gave two other parables — the Wheat and Weeds and the Dragnet — about this reality. All are invited; the only ones excluded are those who exclude themselves. But the invitation is supposed to change us. If we’re invited and we’re good, the privilege should spur us to become better; if we’re invited and we’re bad, the honor should provide the occasion to become honorable.
It’s good to focus on the priorities of those in the parable who turn down the invitation and the priorities of us today. Why didn’t the ones first called come to the banquet? They all excused themselves from it thinking something else was more important. As St. Luke’s Gospel reinforces (Lk 14:16-20), one used his home as an excuse, another his job, a third his family. Pope Francis said in his Angelus meditation, “None of those chosen first accepts to take part in the feast. They say they have other things to do. Some even show indifference, alienation, indeed annoyance.” Notice that none of those who refused the invitation said that they wanted to go out and engage in a life of crime. No, all of them were interested in good things — caring for the home, working, and spending time with one’s spouse or family — but that became relative evils because they prevented them from something better. When it came down to a choice between the wedding banquet and these other tasks, the wedding banquet lost. The King lost. God lost. So everyone needs to ask whether God is truly our priority, not just in theory but in practice. Does he come first? Do we sacrifice other things for him or sacrifice him for other things?
Many saints and preachers throughout the history of the Church the saints have applied this parable to the Mass, not just because the Mass is a banquet with the choicest food of all — the Body and Blood of the precious Lamb of God — but because it is also the foretaste of heaven. Our attitude toward God, toward heaven, toward God’s kingdom, is often shown by how we respond to the invitation Jesus makes to us of the Mass. On Holy Thursday, Jesus said, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover meal with you.” Jesus always eagerly desires to share Mass with us each Sunday. More than the greatest saints have hungered to receive the Lord in Holy Communion, the Lord desires to feed us. He wants us present at Mass more than the most loving mother in the history of the USA wants all her kids present at Thanksgiving dinner. But very often we hear the same excuses given for missing Mass as are found in the parable Jesus uses: people prioritize work over God, cleaning up the house or the yard over God, family over God, sleep over God, even Sunday cartoons, political talk shows or football preview programs over God. To come to the kingdom of heaven, to be not just the many invited but the chosen few, we first need to prioritize God, to accept his invitation, to treat it as the awesome privilege it really is and not take it for granted. One confirmation that we’re doing so is by the way we prioritize Jesus’ eager invitation to the Mass. In the United States, one of the reasons why we are in the midst of a Eucharistic Revival is because of the sad fact that only one of six Catholics invited to the feast of God on the Lord’s day responds to the invitation and comes. Just like those in the parable, most Catholics today prioritize other things. The word “Church” comes from the Greek word ekklesia, which means those having been called! Those having been invited! The Church is supposed to be characterized by those who have responded to Jesus’ invitation. The first thing we learn from this parable is that God invites everyone but that each of us needs to prioritize God over the other good and important things in life. Without that prioritization, we won’t enter God’s kingdom because we’ll be too busy trying to construct our own.
The second thing we learn is about how we’re supposed to arrive when we respond to the invitation. In the parable, Jesus says, “But when the king came in to meet the guests, he noticed a man there who was not dressed in a wedding garment, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’ And the man was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”At first glance, it might seem that the King is both crazy and cruel: he commanded his servants to invite the man to the feast and then he’s picky about what he’s wearing? The truth is that in the ancient world, when kings would summon commoners to a feast, they, knowing that most would be too poor and would not have proper vesture, would normally send out the royal tailors to make proper clothing for everyone invited or otherwise provided fitting attire. It would be like a rich man today inviting homeless people to a black-tie dinner but then giving them free hotel rooms to shower and providing free tuxedos, shoes or gowns to wear. With this history, it’s not difficult to recognize why the king would be so upset about seeing this improperly attired man: this man deliberated refused to wear the clothing that was required and made available. The lesson for all of us is that it’s not enough to show up. We, too, have to be properly dressed for the feast. But what clothing has been provided for us? What does God want us wearing? What apparel is fit for the banquet?
Paul describes the proper vesture in two of his epistles. In his Letter to the Colossians, he wrote, “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. … Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col 3:12-14). In the Letter to the Ephesians, he talks about our clothes as a spiritual armor: “Therefore, put on the whole armor of God: … fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph 6:11-17). It’s easy to get the picture: the wedding garments God wants us to don are weaved with acts of faith, love, hope, kindness, compassion, humility, patience, meekness, truth, holiness.
To make the image even simpler, more concrete, and more specific, God wants us to show up with the garment he himself gave us when we became his adopted children. As we were vested with our baptismal garment, the baptizing bishop, priest or deacon said to us, “You have become a new creation, and have clothed yourself in Christ. May this white garment be a sign to you of your Christian dignity. With your family and friends to help you by word and example, bring it unstained into eternal life.” Christ himself is meant to be our garment! We are to be clothed in him, in his risen life. As long as we live in him and vest ourselves in his virtues, then we will always be ready and unstained for eternal life. To talk about arriving properly dressed means we’re adorned in our baptismal graces, we’re living the life with Christ that flows from our baptism, we’ve chosen a moral and holy life, rejecting Satan, his empty promises and evil works and living by faith in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in communion with the saints in the Catholic Church.
To be properly dressed spiritually is so important today. The Church is not only “Here comes everybody!” in which all people are invited, but the Church also seeks to remind everyone of the need spiritually to dress appropriately, to “put on” and adorn ourselves with Jesus Christ (Rom 13:14). In practical terms, it means that everyone is both welcome and called to be cleansed, summoned to look at their clothing and see if their soul still sparkles with the brilliance of their white baptismal garment. Many are invited but not everyone chooses to take advantage of the Lord’s help through his Church to change their vesture. In the Book of Revelation, there’s an image of what it takes to get to the banquet of the kingdom of heaven. It’s an image of the saints, a “great multitude that no one could count from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb.’” St. John is told, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” The way God cleanses our garments and makes them white is through Jesus’ blood, which is, paradoxically, the most powerful bleach ever known. But we need to be humble to let him do it, and it’s in the Sacrament of Reconciliation that Jesus wants to bathe us in that cleansing detergent that can wipe out even the darkest stains of sin. That’s what we need to do to clean the garment of our soul so that we are always ready for the banquet. To receive the invitation to eternal life but to respond without conversion, without change, without even wanting to show up with our baptismal garment full of Christ’s virtues, is to fail to acknowledge the dignity of the King, of the banquet and of the invitation. And there’s a very important additional reason: we’re ultimately not meant to be just guests at the wedding feast, but the Bride. That’s why the King so much wants all of us there. To stand him up by refusing the invitation is for us to leave Christ the Bridegroom at the altar; to show up improperly dressed, however, is like a bride showing up with sweatpants to her own royal wedding. God give us the clothing to wear and we have to have the humility, dignity and love to wear it.
The third and last lesson is about sharing the faith with others. Just like the prophets, just like the apostles, so we, too, have a role as God’s servants in calling everyone to the feast and helping them to get dressed for it. That’s our task in the world, the continuation of Jesus’ mission. We want our family members to get to heaven. We want our friends, neighbors, coworkers, fellow priests or religious sisters, even strangers and those who persecute us to come to heaven. But we need to correspond with God’s work, let others know of the invitation, help them to say yes to it, and then assist them to get ready. Pope Francis said in the Angelus meditation that we’re not supposed to be concerned only with those who are coming, but are supposed to seek to bring news of the invitation of our faith to all. “The goodness of God has no limits,” he said, “and for this reason Lord’s banquet is universal, it’s meant for all. … We are all called not to reduce the Kingdom of God to the confines of ‘little churches’ — our own ‘little Church’ — but to expand the Church to the dimensions of the Kingdom of God.” The Lord does not just want us to respond to his invitation and show up properly vested, but he wants us to go out to crossroads to invite others.
One clear application of the lessons of this parable is to the Synod on Synodality taking place in the Vatican. As Pope Francis has emphasized, the Synodal Church he seeks must live what the Church has always sought to be, the continuation of Christ’s mission inviting everyone, including and especially those on the peripheries of existence. The King of Kings wants to exclude no one and invite everyone. But as today’s parable makes clear, the Church not meant to be a come-as-you-go affair. As the King seeks to welcome everyone to the banquet — those who up until that point were good and others who were bad — he wants all to convert, all to get dressed, all to welcome him in return at the depth he wants to be received. There are some who dream of a Church that welcomes everyone but converts no one, who, rather than helping people become the saints to which their baptism summons them, just want to ignore their sins and even attempt to bless those sins. Because God loves each of us sinners, however, he wants to free us not just from the consequences of our sins but from our sins themselves. But we have to take off our dirty rags and put on anew our dazzling baptismal garments, rejecting Satan, his empty promises and evil works, and living in communion with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit who is holy, holy, holy. Let’s pray that the Synod helps the whole Church live out to the full what today’s parable teaches, about welcoming everyone and helping everyone welcome the Lord and put on his virtues and holiness.
“Come to the Feast,” the King in the Parable tells us today. He says it both about the Mass and about heaven. If we put God first, respond to his invitation in life by coming to the new and eternal Passover he eagerly desires to eat with us, arrive well-prepared and well-dressed, and seek to invite others to join us, we can be confident that we will be ready to greet him whenever he comes to call us to the eternal nuptial feast. The more we arrive at Mass with readiness, joy and a clean wedding garment full of virtues and the love of God, the greater our preparation for eternity. This will be the best means for us to be numbered among the “chosen few” who will say, in the words of King David from today’s responsorial psalm, “I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” Blessed, indeed, are those called to the Supper of the Lamb!

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1
Is 25:6-10a
On this mountain the LORD of hosts
will provide for all peoples
a feast of rich food and choice wines,
juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.
On this mountain he will destroy
the veil that veils all peoples,
the web that is woven over all nations;
he will destroy death forever.
The Lord GOD will wipe away
the tears from every face;
the reproach of his people he will remove
from the whole earth; for the LORD has spoken.
On that day it will be said:
“Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us!
This is the LORD for whom we looked;
let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!”
For the hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6
R. (6cd) I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
In verdant pastures he gives me repose;
beside restful waters he leads me;
he refreshes my soul.
R. I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
He guides me in right paths
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk in the dark valley
I fear no evil; for you are at my side
with your rod and your staff
that give me courage.
R. I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
You spread the table before me
in the sight of my foes;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
R. I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
Only goodness and kindness follow me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
for years to come.
R. I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
Reading 2
Phil 4:12-14, 19-20
Brothers and sisters:
I know how to live in humble circumstances;
I know also how to live with abundance.
In every circumstance and in all things
I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry,
of living in abundance and of being in need.
I can do all things in him who strengthens me.
Still, it was kind of you to share in my distress.My God will fully supply whatever you need,
in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
To our God and Father, glory forever and ever. Amen.
Alleluia
Cf. Eph 1:17-18
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
enlighten the eyes of our hearts,
so that we may know what is the hope
that belongs to our call.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Mt 22:1-14
Jesus again in reply spoke to the chief priests and elders of the people
in parables, saying,
“The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who gave a wedding feast for his son.
He dispatched his servants
to summon the invited guests to the feast,
but they refused to come.
A second time he sent other servants, saying,
‘Tell those invited: “Behold, I have prepared my banquet,
my calves and fattened cattle are killed,
and everything is ready; come to the feast.”‘
Some ignored the invitation and went away,
one to his farm, another to his business.
The rest laid hold of his servants,
mistreated them, and killed them.
The king was enraged and sent his troops,
destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.
Then he said to his servants, ‘The feast is ready,
but those who were invited were not worthy to come.
Go out, therefore, into the main roads
and invite to the feast whomever you find.’
The servants went out into the streets
and gathered all they found, bad and good alike,
and the hall was filled with guests.
But when the king came in to meet the guests,
he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.
The king said to him, ‘My friend, how is it
that you came in here without a wedding garment?’
But he was reduced to silence.
Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet,
and cast him into the darkness outside,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’
Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
The post Responding to God’s Invitation and Getting Properly Dressed, Twenty-Eighth Sunday (A), October 15, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
23 min
October 14, 2023Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, October 14, 2023
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Twenty-Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time, A, Vigil
October 14, 2023

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below:
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The following text guided the homily:
This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday.
In the Gospel, Jesus continues to answer the objections of those chief priests and elders of the people who objected to his cleansing the temple. When they refused to answer Jesus’ question about whether John the Baptist’s work was of heavenly or human origin because they both didn’t want to heed his message of conversion or lose the respect of the crowds who knew John was a prophet, Jesus gave them three parables to try to bring them to conversion. The first was two weeks ago, in the Parable of the Two Sons, one who initially refuses his father’s entreaties to go to work in the vineyard but then goes, an image of the conversion of tax collectors, prostitutes and others; and the second, an image of the chief priests and elders, of those who say a verbal yes to the Father but never go, a sign that they follow God just with their lips. Last week we had the Parable of the Corrupt Tenants, in which those whom God had entrusted with the vineyard of the House of Israel, refused to give the produce to the Vineyard Owner and killed both his servants and his Son, another sign of how many of God’s people had slaughtered the prophets sent to them to solicit the good deeds of the covenant much as the chief priests and scribes were then plotting to kill God’s son Jesus.
This Sunday is the third in a triptych of parables. Through it Jesus speaks to us about the kingdom of heaven, the invitation he has given us to join him there forever, and about how we need to respond to that invitation. He does so within the context of a parable about salvation history in which he illustrates for us, basically, how not to respond, in which he was clearly indicating the behavior of his present antagonists. Jesus concludes the parable by saying, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.” We obviously want to be numbered among the “chosen few.” The chosen ones are not those whom God somehow favors over others. They are those who respond fully to having been chosen by God. Therefore, it’s important for us to pay close attention to what Jesus tells us this Sunday so that we will respond to his invitation, choose him who has chosen us, and help the “many” we know also learn how to become among those who will celebrate with Jesus at the joyful wedding feast that will know no end!
Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a wedding banquet a king is throwing for his son. This is a clear reference to heaven and illustrates how God wants all people to be saved and to come to this feast. There are three parts of this parable that we need to ponder:
The first is the invitation. Jesus says that the King sent his servants to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. It’s an unbelievable response. When there’s a royal wedding, like, for example, Charles and Diana or William and Kate, it becomes one of the hottest tickets of all time. People do everything they can to come. But not in the parable. The invitees refused. When they didn’t respond the first time, the hard-working King who wanted them there gave them a second chance. He sent other servants, saying, “Tell those who have been invited: Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and my fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the feast.’” But, again, they made light of it. Jesus says one went to his farm and another to his business, too busy to reprioritize their daily affairs for the once-in-a-lifetime royal wedding. They were too self-absorbed to care about the king. Other invitees, Jesus says, seized the king’s servants, mistreated them and killed them. They killed the king’s heralds who were doing nothing to them except inviting them to the royal banquet of the king, because not only did they not want to change their priorities, but they couldn’t handle even hearing the invitation, and so they extinguished the messenger. The servants that Jesus has been describing up until then are the prophets who had been sent by God to invite the Jews to this feast, but, as we talked about last week in the parable of the tenant farmers, all of the prophets were mistreated and killed by some of the religious leaders and people receiving the invitation to communion with God. Only some, like obviously the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, the Apostles and those women and men who became Jesus’ disciples, responded to Jesus’ invitation.
But God kept inviting still. The king and his servants worked harder to invite the guests than it seems it took to run the banquet. Jesus says that other servants went out a third time and “gathered all whom they found, both good and bad, so the wedding hall was filled with guests.” This refers to the proclamation of the Gospel to the Gentiles that helped to build the Church, which then became the ongoing mission of the Church. Like in the Parables of the Wheat and Weeds and of the Dragnet, there are good and bad invited into the banquet of the kingdom representing the Church. We shouldn’t be surprised, therefore, that in the Church we find great saints and great sinners, that we find the faithful and the hypocrites. All are invited; the only ones excluded are those who exclude themselves. But the invitation is supposed to change us. If we’re invited and we’re good, the privilege should spur us to become better; if we’re invited and we’re bad, the honor should provide the occasion to become honorable. We see, however, that at least one responded to the invitation by showing up without conversion. We see this in the dialogue the king has with one of the guests. Jesus describes, “When the king came in to meet the guests, he noticed a man there who was not dressed in a wedding garment, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’ And the man was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”
At first glance, it might seem that the King is both crazy and cruel: he commanded his servants to invite the man to the feast and then he’s picky about what he’s wearing? The truth is that in the ancient world, when kings would summon commoners to a feast, they, knowing that most would be too poor and not have proper vesture, would normally send out the royal tailors to make proper clothing for everyone invited or otherwise provided fitting clothing. It would be like a rich man today inviting homeless people to a black-tie dinner but then giving them free hotel rooms to shower and providing free tuxedos, shoes and gowns to wear. With this history, it’s not difficult to recognize why the king would be so upset about seeing this improperly attired man: this man deliberated refused to wear the clothing that was required and made available. The lesson for all of us is that it’s not enough just to show up. We, too, have to be properly dressed for the feast. But we have to ask: What clothing has been provided for us? What does God want us wearing? What apparel is fit for the banquet? God wants us to show up with the garment he himself gave us when we became his adopted children. As we were vested with our baptismal garment, the baptizing cleric said to us, “You have become a new creation, and have clothed yourself in Christ. May this white garment be a sign to you of your Christian dignity. With your family and friends to help you by word and example, bring it unstained into eternal life.” Our baptismal garment is a sign that we have put on Christ. Christ himself is meant to be our garment! We are to be clothed in his risen life. As long as we live in him, vest ourselves in his virtues, then we will always be ready and unstained for eternal life. And God provides the dry-cleaning business for our baptismal garment in the Sacrament of Confession, where the blood of the Lamb is, paradoxically, the most powerful bleach ever known. To receive the invitation to eternal life but to respond without conversion, without change, without even wanting to show up with our baptismal garment, is to fail to acknowledge the dignity of the King, of the banquet and of the invitation. We’re ultimately not meant to be guests at the wedding feast, but the Bride. That’s why the King so much wants all of us there. To stand him up is for us to leave Christ the Bridegroom at the altar; to show up improperly dressed is like a bride showing up with sweatpants to her own wedding. God give us the clothing to wear and we have to have the humility, love and dignity to wear it.
This parable obviously has an application to Jesus’ original listeners, to try to bring them to conversion and enter the banquet. But it also has a huge meaning for all of us listeners today. One clear application is to the Synod on Synodality for a Synodal Church taking place in the Vatican. As Pope Francis has emphasized, the Synodal Church he seeks must live what the Church has always sought to be, the continuation of Christ’s mission inviting everyone, including those on the peripheries of existence. The King of Kings wants to exclude no one and invite everyone. But it’s not meant to be a come-as-you-go affair. As the King seeks to welcome everyone to the banquet, those who up until that point were good and others who were bad, he wants all to convert, all to get dressed, all to welcome him in return at the depth he wants to be received. There are some who dream of a Church that welcomes everyone but converts no one, who rather than helping people become the saints to which their baptism summons them, just wants to bless their sinful relationships and ignore their sins. Because God loves each of us sinners, he wants to free us from our sins. But we’ve got to take off our dirty clothes and put on anew our dazzling baptismal garments, rejecting Satan, his empty promises and evil works, and living in communion with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit who is holy, holy, holy. Let’s pray that the Synod helps the Church live out both lessons of this parable.
“Come to the Feast,” the King in the Parable tells us this Sunday. He says it first about the Mass on earth and second about what the Mass points to, heaven. About both we can say, “Blessed are those called to the Supper of the Lamb.” If we put God first, respond to his invitation in life by coming to Church, arrive properly dressed in an unstained baptismal garment, and seek to invite others to join us, we can be confident that we will be ready to greet him whenever he comes to call us to the eternal wedding banquet. This will be the best means for us to be numbered among the “chosen few” who will say, in the words of King David from the psalm we’ll hear this Sunday, “I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.”

The Gospel reading on which the homily was based was:
Gospel
Mt 22:1-14
Jesus again in reply spoke to the chief priests and elders of the people
in parables, saying,
“The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who gave a wedding feast for his son.
He dispatched his servants
to summon the invited guests to the feast,
but they refused to come.
A second time he sent other servants, saying,
‘Tell those invited: “Behold, I have prepared my banquet,
my calves and fattened cattle are killed,
and everything is ready; come to the feast.”‘
Some ignored the invitation and went away,
one to his farm, another to his business.
The rest laid hold of his servants,
mistreated them, and killed them.
The king was enraged and sent his troops,
destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.
Then he said to his servants, ‘The feast is ready,
but those who were invited were not worthy to come.
Go out, therefore, into the main roads
and invite to the feast whomever you find.’
The servants went out into the streets
and gathered all they found, bad and good alike,
and the hall was filled with guests.
But when the king came in to meet the guests,
he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.
The king said to him, ‘My friend, how is it
that you came in here without a wedding garment?’
But he was reduced to silence.
Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet,
and cast him into the darkness outside,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’
Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
The post Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, October 14, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
10 min
October 13, 2023Joining Jesus, the Stronger Man, in Gathering For His Kingdom, 27th Friday (I), October 13, 2023
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Friday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Votive Mass of Our Lady of Fatima
October 13, 2023
Joel 1:13-15.2:1-2, Ps 9, Lk 11:15-26

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.13.23_Homily_1.mp3

The following points were attempted in the homily:
On Sunday I celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of my diaconal ordination. In 1998, October 8 was Thursday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I. The next day I had the privilege to proclaim the Gospel for the first time at Mass and to preach, at a Mass celebrated by Fr. Paul Bailey, my childhood pastor, at the Chapel of Our Lady of Fatima in the Dorothean Sisters’ Casa Fatima across from the North American College in Rome. I remember that special chapel in a particular way today on the 106th anniversary of our Lady of Fatima’s last appearance to the three shepherd children in Fatima and of the famous miracle of sun. But The readings I had to preach on are the same we encounter today, and for that reason I’ve always had a special affection for them as well as a particular gratitude to God, because they’re not particularly easy to preach on! That means, right from the beginning, I had a chance to put into practice what I was instructed to do at my diaconal ordination, to “believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practice what you teach,” and had to do so explicitly with far greater dependence on God and far greater cooperation with the Holy Spirit. Whenever I have had the chance to preach, therefore, on Jesus and Beelzebul, and on the Lord’s message to us through the Prophet Joel, they always remind me of the summons God gives to turn to him for the light of faith every time I preach.
Let’s get into the scene. Over the last two days we have been listening to Jesus teach us about prayer and how to relate to God as Father. He instructed us to ask the Father with confidence not to let us fall when tempted and to prevent us from the evil one. He then taught us about the importance of persevering in prayer with the Parable of the Neighbor asking for Three Loaves at Midnight so that we may learn how to persevere in the Christian life until the end. Today’s readings focus on that necessary perseverance in life because of the way that devil persistently tries to tempt us to divide ourselves from the love of God and the love of neighbor.
We see in the Gospel the opposition Jesus faced by those who refused to believe in him or his works. By this point, Jesus had already worked all of the miracles foretold by Isaiah (61) that would mark the advent of the Messiah: he had proclaimed the Gospel to the poor, healed the sick, made the blind see, the deaf hear, the mute speak, the lame walk. He had liberated the captives from the snatches of the devil by countless exorcisms. He had fed multitudes. He had walked on water. He had done so much. The people who didn’t believe in him couldn’t deny the facts, but they could try to give them another interpretation: Jesus, they argued, wasn’t working them by God’s power but by the devil’s, an attempt to justify their lack of faith in him and their opposition. Jesus, in his words to them, spoke about the work of the devil and the main thrust of his own saving work. The work of the devil is to divide and the main focus of Jesus’ work is to save us and sanctify us by bringing us into communion with God and in Him with others. Christ during the Last Supper prayed for a unity among us resembling the Trinity. He made that union possible that through his incarnation, his life, his passion, death and resurrection. We prayed in the Gospel verse about how, when he would be lifted up on the Cross, he would draw all men to himself — and out of the clutches of the evil one. We remember from St. Mark’s Gospel the two essential aspects involved in life with Jesus: he calls us to be with him and to send us out. The devil wants to divide us from Jesus and prevent our going out as effective, ardent apostles. And he normally seeks to achieve both objectives by division, dividing us from genuine love of neighbor and thereby separating us from God. This is exactly the opposite of what Christ seeks: to gather us to him and to send us out in communion with him to gather others. Jesus gives everyone a choice. He said that Satan won’t do exorcisms because he would then be defeating himself. It’s only God who could do so. God comes in Christ as the “stronger man” to conquer the power of Satan and take his “spoils,” knowing that his “spoils” would be souls Jesus would take out of his hand. Jesus warned his critics at the end of the Gospel to see that God had freed them through the Old Covenant from the domination of the evil one, but that a worse fate could await them if they ceased to live by faith. The devil could return with seven demons and the new state would be worse than the one even before they had been given the Covenant. The whole thrust of Jesus’ words were to help us to respond to Jesus’ desire to gather us into his family and to send us out to gather with him.
We see in the first reading how that worse fate took place among the Jews after the exile. Joel is the eighth of eight post-exilic prophets we have been examining over the last three weeks. The exiles had returned with great hope and joy from Babylon to Jerusalem, and, as we’ve seen, pondered anew with detail the word of God, committed to keep it, and rebuilt the temple. But eventually they started to fall back into their old habits and the Prophet Joel needed to wake them up. That’s what Joel did, with words we hear every Ash Wednesday, reminding them that the house of God was “deprived of offering and libation.” After they had gotten things back into order, they were now descending anew, and was warning that their future fate could in fact be worse. That’s why, for God, the Prophet Joel was seeking to gather together the elders and all those who were dwelling in the land into the house of the Lord for prayer.
As we celebrate this votive Mass of Our Lady of Fatima, we remember how Mary appeared in Fatima to warn against the work of the devil in bringing us to hell, to war, and to attacks on the Pope and the Church. The solution was prayer and sacrifice for the conversion of sinners and for peace in the world, and the way peace would be brought was through consecration to her immaculate heart. It’s an initially strange remedy, but to entrust ourselves to Mary’s heart means to focus on having a heart that says yes to God in everything, that treasures God and the things of God, that receives God’s love and lets that overflow to God and others. Peace comes through our mutually orienting ourselves to God. It’s an ever important reminder at a time in which human hatreds and rivalries, including among those who claim to be religious believers, are setting the world on fire. Today on this day, we turn to Our Lady, and ask for her maternal prayers for conversion and peace. We do so in an age in which, among Catholics, many deprive themselves of “offering and libation,” of Jesus’ body and blood. And so we’re called, like Jonah, blow the trumpet and sound the alarm, to announce that the day of the Lord has come, that the Kingdom of God is at hand, and Jesus wants us and others to come to be with him in the light of that kingdom. At Mass, Jesus, the Stronger Man, seeks to unite us together with Him and others. He gives us the help we need to defeat the devil’s attempted sabotage of our life. He assists us to believe what we read, teach what we believe, and practice what we teach. He reminds us that we are the disciples of him who has defeated the devil and conquered even sin and death and wants to help us to commit anew to his rebuilding project in us and to the work of gathering with him into a united kingdom that will stand strong into eternity.

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 Jl 1:13-15; 2:1-2
Gird yourselves and weep, O priests!
wail, O ministers of the altar!
Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
O ministers of my God!
The house of your God is deprived
of offering and libation.
Proclaim a fast,
call an assembly;
Gather the elders,
all who dwell in the land,
Into the house of the LORD, your God,
and cry to the LORD!
Alas, the day!
for near is the day of the LORD,
and it comes as ruin from the Almighty.
Blow the trumpet in Zion,
sound the alarm on my holy mountain!
Let all who dwell in the land tremble,
for the day of the LORD is coming;
Yes, it is near, a day of darkness and of gloom,
a day of clouds and somberness!
Like dawn spreading over the mountains,
a people numerous and mighty!
Their like has not been from of old,
nor will it be after them,
even to the years of distant generations.
Responsorial Psalm PS 9:2-3, 6 and 16, 8-9
R. (9) The Lord will judge the world with justice.
I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with all my heart;
I will declare all your wondrous deeds.
I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, Most High.
R. The Lord will judge the world with justice.
You rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked;
their name you blotted out forever and ever.
The nations are sunk in the pit they have made;
in the snare they set, their foot is caught.
R. The Lord will judge the world with justice.
But the LORD sits enthroned forever;
he has set up his throne for judgment.
He judges the world with justice;
he governs the peoples with equity.
R. The Lord will judge the world with justice.
Alleluia Jn 12:31b-32
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The prince of this world will now be cast out,
and when I am lifted up from the earth
I will draw all to myself, says the Lord.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel Lk 11:15-26
When Jesus had driven out a demon, some of the crowd said:
“By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons,
he drives out demons.”
Others, to test him, asked him for a sign from heaven.
But he knew their thoughts and said to them,
“Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste
and house will fall against house.
And if Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?
For you say that it is by Beelzebul that I drive out demons.
If I, then, drive out demons by Beelzebul,
by whom do your own people drive them out?
Therefore they will be your judges.
But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons,
then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.
When a strong man fully armed guards his palace,
his possessions are safe.
But when one stronger than he attacks and overcomes him,
he takes away the armor on which he relied
and distributes the spoils.
Whoever is not with me is against me,
and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
“When an unclean spirit goes out of someone,
it roams through arid regions searching for rest
but, finding none, it says,
‘I shall return to my home from which I came.’
But upon returning, it finds it swept clean and put in order.
Then it goes and brings back seven other spirits
more wicked than itself who move in and dwell there,
and the last condition of that man is worse than the first.”
The post Joining Jesus, the Stronger Man, in Gathering For His Kingdom, 27th Friday (I), October 13, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
18 min
October 12, 2023God’s Incredibly Generous Response to Our Prayers, 27th Thursday (I), October 12, 2023
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Thursday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of Blessed Carlo Acutis
October 12, 2023
Mal 3:13-20, Ps 1, Lk 11:5-13

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.12.23_Homily_1.mp3

The following points were attempted in the homily:
Today Jesus continues to respond to the question of yesterday, to teach us how to pray. Yesterday, when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he began by teaching them that the secret of prayer is to approach God as a loving Father. Once we do, almost everything flows logically. We begin to seek the glory and sanctification of his name and the building of his kingdom not only because we love Him but also because we know that, as his sons and daughters, we share that name and are heirs of that kingdom. Once we relate to him as a Loving Father than we trust in his providence to give us each day what we need and in his mercy to forgive us when we err because he loves us more than he detests the sins that hurt us and wound our relationship with him. When we relate to him as a Loving Father, we trust him not to put us in a position in which we’ll fail the ultimate test but rather to challenge us and help us to meet those challenges that are beyond what we think are possible.
Today Jesus continues his responding to our request to teach us how to pray by illustrating for us how to persevere in prayer. He gives us a parable based on middle eastern customs of hospitality. Especially during the summer months when the sun is most brutal, many Jews would travel at night and so it was not unheard of that a guest would arrive at your home — in the days not only before phones, texts and emails but also before a postal system that was affordable and efficient — unannounced at night, famished after a long journey. Because bread was baked normally in the morning, it’s possible that all the bread had already been eaten. That’s why you’d go to your neighbors to ask if they had anything to share. The second thing to understand about middle eastern culture is that their doors were open all day long but when they were shut and locked, that meant that the entire family and all their animals had gone to bed. They’d sleep together in an interior part of the house to stay warm during the typical middle eastern nocturnal radiational cooling. To get up to answer the door when a neighbor was knocking at midnight meant that one would likely be stepping on one’s children, one’s animals and waking everyone up. It’s understandable that one would want to wait to share bread until the morning. But Jesus says that because of the perseverance of the neighbor, “I tell you, if he does not get up to give him the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.” Jesus mentions this as a lesson in prayer precisely in order to contrast that motivation with God’s. He was saying, “If a neighbor would eventually give in because of harassment, think about how God will respond out of love?”
That led Jesus to say, “I tell you, ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you, for everyone who asks receives, everyone who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks the door will be opened.” What an incredible promise! Notice that he doesn’t say that one will receive, find or have the door opened immediately. He also doesn’t say that one will receive and find exactly what one expected to find. But he does promise God will respond, precisely because God is a loving Father who always responds first and foremost by giving himself. That’s why Jesus said, “What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” God sends the Holy Spirit not just to those who ask for the Holy Spirit but for those who ask, seek, or knock for anything, and he does so precisely because he loves us and provides what we really need beyond what we desire or explicitly request. God always responds to our prayers by giving us himself.
The question we need to answer, however, is why God, if he loves us, doesn’t answer our prayers immediately. Why does he want us to persevere in knocking like the neighbor for bread? Why does he want us to spend hours, days, months even years seeking in order to find? He does so precisely so that we may learn how to persevere in life. Pope Francis asked in an Angelus meditation a few years ago tackled why God wants to train us in persevering prayer: “Why does God want this? Doesn’t he already know what we need? … This is a good question that makes us examine an important aspect of the faith: God invites us to pray insistently not because he is unaware of our needs or because he is not listening to us. On the contrary, he is always listening and he knows everything about us lovingly.” But because we pray as we live and live as we pray, he wants to develop in us through prayer the type of perseverance we need to remain faithful in life. “On our daily journey, especially in times of difficulty, in the battle against the evil that is outside and within us,” Pope Francis continued, “the Lord is not far away, he is by our side. We battle with him beside us, and our weapon is prayer which makes us feel his presence beside us, his mercy and also his help. But the battle against evil is a long and hard one; it requires patience and endurance. …Indeed persevering prayer is the expression of faith in a God who calls us to fight with him every day and at every moment in order to conquer evil with good.” Persevering prayer helps us to learn the persevering faith we have to have to fight the good fight so as to win.
This is important for us to understand today’s Psalm and first reading. There’s a contrast between two types of people. For the Prophet Malachi, it’s between those who think it’s “vain to serve God,” to do penance, to keep the commandments, because the those who are proud, who do evil, who tempt God all seem to prosper whereas those who serve God don’t. But God through Malachi reminds the people that those who trust in his name, who fear him, will receive his compassion on the day of judgment. They will see the eternal sunshine and receive the healing of the Sun of Justice. Similarly in the Responsorial Psalm, there’s the contrast between those who follow the counsel of the wicked and insolent, who are like chaff that will disappear after being burned, and those who meditate on God’s law day and night. The latter will be like a tree near running water that is always evergreen and prospers. These readings show us something really important about prayer: prayer is heavily influenced by our desires. If what we want is this-worldly prosperity, pleasure, money, health, fame, then we will probably envy the rich and famous of the world. If we’re really seeking those things, then we probably will easily quit on prayer, especially if God isn’t prompt to grant us those things. If, on the other hand, we really want God’s name to be hallowed instead of us, his will to be done, his kingdom rather than ours — if, in other words, we really love God and want what he wants — then we’ll persevere, because it’s through prayer God gives us himself and makes us more and more like him.
There are several forms of persevering prayer that are given to us in the school of prayer in the Church that we can mention: the Holy Rosary, which we should ponder more deeply in October, the month of the Holy Rosary, in which we persevere in pondering Christ’s mysteries together with Mary; the Liturgy of the Hours, in which we persevere in praying the Psalms that Christ and Mary prayed, for the needs of the Church; work, which is a real setting for persevering prayer, as we offer what we’re doing as the sacrifice of Abel to God; suffering, in offering up our sufferings for the conversion of the world. and the Mass, the greatest prayer of them all, in which until the end of time, from the rising of the sun to its setting, we share in Christ’s eternal prayer for the Upper Room and the Cross.
Today we have a great witness to the power of prayer and how God responds. Blessed Carlo Acutis died on this day 17 years ago at the age of 15. He grew up in a non-practicing family, but as soon as he became aware of the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, his whole life changed. He longed to make his first Confession and first Holy Communion. Thereafter he structured his whole life around praying to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and receiving him within. At seven years old, after making his First Communion, he said, “To be always united to Jesus: this is my program of life.” One of the reasons why he was filled with infectious joy was because of his prayer. “Sadness is looking at ourselves; happiness is looking toward God.” He made his theme, “Non io, ma Dio” (not I, but God). He sought to make a Eucharistic holy hour of prayer every day and succeeded several days a week. Whenever he would find an open Church, he would enter just to say “hello” to Jesus. He described his whole approach to prayer in this way: “I like to speak to Jesus about all that I am experiencing and feeling. … To him I can always confide something. I can also complain, question him about his silence and tell him what I do not understand. And then, within me, I find a word that he sends me: a moment of the Gospel that fills me with conviction and certainty.” About the incredible privilege we have, he said, “We can find God, with his Body, his Soul and his Divinity, present in all the tabernacles of the world! If we think about it, we are more fortunate than those who lived 2,000 years ago in contact with Jesus, because we have God really and substantially present with us always. It’s enough to visit the closest Church! We have Jerusalem on our doorsteps. Jerusalem is every Church! If only people visited tabernacles with the same devotion!” He prioritized above all the prayer of the Mass, which he called his “highway to heaven.” With wonder he taught, “The more often we receive the Eucharist, the more we become like Jesus.” He was moved to help spread love of Jesus in the Mass to his peers. “I think that many people do not fully understand the value of the Mass, because if they recognized the enormous blessing we have in a Lord who gives himself as our food and drink in the Sacred Host, they would go to Mass every day to participate in the fruits of the sacrifice and let go of so many superfluous things.” He sought to help understand the value of the Mass and the value of prayer. Today we ask perseveringly through his intercession to grasp that same value and to be moved to let it influence our whole life. The Church prays today at the beginning of Mass, “O God, who in the life of Blessed Carlo, has revealed the unfathomable riches of the Eucharist and made him an example to young people and a witness of mercy to the poor, grant also to us, through his intercession, to live always united to you and to recognize you in our brothers and sisters whom we meet along our way.” And in response to this persevering prayer, God the Father will give us not three loaves of bread, but himself: his Son the Living Bread come down from heaven and the Holy Spirit who seeks to make us one body, one spirit in Christ!

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 MAL 3:13-20B
You have defied me in word, says the LORD,
yet you ask, “What have we spoken against you?”
You have said, “It is vain to serve God,
and what do we profit by keeping his command,
And going about in penitential dress
in awe of the LORD of hosts?
Rather must we call the proud blessed;
for indeed evildoers prosper,
and even tempt God with impunity.”
Then they who fear the LORD spoke with one another,
and the LORD listened attentively;
And a record book was written before him
of those who fear the LORD and trust in his name.
And they shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts,
my own special possession, on the day I take action.
And I will have compassion on them,
as a man has compassion on his son who serves him.
Then you will again see the distinction
between the just and the wicked;
Between the one who serves God,
and the one who does not serve him.
For lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven,
when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble,
And the day that is coming will set them on fire,
leaving them neither root nor branch,
says the LORD of hosts.
But for you who fear my name, there will arise
the sun of justice with its healing rays.
Responsorial Psalm PS 1:1-2, 3, 4 AND 6
R. (Ps 40:5a) Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Alleluia SEE ACTS 16:14B
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Open our hearts, O Lord,
to listen to the words of your Son.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel LK 11:5-13
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Suppose one of you has a friend
to whom he goes at midnight and says,
‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread,
for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey
and I have nothing to offer him,’
and he says in reply from within,
‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked
and my children and I are already in bed.
I cannot get up to give you anything.’
I tell you, if he does not get up to give him the loaves
because of their friendship,
he will get up to give him whatever he needs
because of his persistence.
“And I tell you, ask and you will receive;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives;
and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
What father among you would hand his son a snake
when he asks for a fish?
Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?
If you then, who are wicked,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit
to those who ask him?”
The post God’s Incredibly Generous Response to Our Prayers, 27th Thursday (I), October 12, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
19 min
October 11, 2023The Balm of Divine Mercy, 27th Wednesday (I), October 11, 2023
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Wednesday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of Pope St. John XXIII
October 11, 2023
Jon 4:1-11, Ps 86, Lk 11:1-14

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
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The following points were attempted in the homily:
Today is the feast of Pope St. John XXIII, which takes place not on the day he died (June 3 in 1963, which is taken by St. Charles Lwanga and companions, the martyrs of Uganda) but on October 11, the day 61 years ago he convened the Second Vatican Council. The purpose for convening the Council, he said on this day in 1962, was “that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more  efficaciously,” noting that “the substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another,” and he thought our age needed a special presentation of the faith with regard to the errors of the day so that the faith may be effective guarded and efficaciously transmitted. He said that most Councils were called to oppose errors, saying, “Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays however, the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. … The Catholic Church, raising the torch of religious truth by means of this Ecumenical Council, desires to show herself to be the loving mother of all, benign, patient, full of mercy and goodness.”
In today’s readings we see how the God who founded the Church seeks to use the balm of mercy and help us learn how to imitate him in this. We praise Him in the Psalm for being “merciful and gracious,” “good and forgiving, abounding in kindness to all who call upon” him, which is why together with the Psalmist we have confidence to ask, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for to you I call all the day.” But this healing balm was something Jonah didn’t appreciate. God’s mercy, in fact, angered him. “Jonah was greatly displeased,” we read, “and became angry that God did not carry out the evil he threatened against Nineveh.” Whether it was his wounded pride that God didn’t carry out the destruction Jonah had announced to the Ninevites, whether it was indignation that he had been inconvenienced to leave his home and come to Nineveh to preach, we don’t know. But he claims that God’s mercy was the reason “why I fled at first to Tarshish,” as if he was running away from God’s goodness, which is totally revisionist history! (He fled because he was afraid of announcing harsh words, because he feared the Ninevites would attack the messenger, rather than embrace the message as they did). Jonah continues, “I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, rich in clemency, loath to punish. And now, Lord, please take my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.” It’s funny: the only reason why he was alive in the first place is because God is merciful and gracious, forgave him his desertion and saved his life. Jonah thought that his complaining to the Lord might have an impact, however, and so went outside the city to wait to see if God would in fact destroy the city. The Lord used a gourd plant to teach him an important lesson: that just Jonah didn’t want to lose the gourd plant, which had grown up just for a day, so God didn’t want to lose the Ninevites, 120,000 of whom he was still raising even though spiritually they could not “distinguish their right hand from their left.”
Jesus wanted us to have a different relationship with the mercy of God than Jonah did. When his disciples asked him to teach them to pray, he taught them how to relate to God as Abba, as Dad, as Father in a relationship of spiritual filiation. As part of the Our Father he taught them to pray, “forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,” and would follow similar words in St. Matthew’s version of the prayer saying that unless we forgive others, God won’t forgive us, not because he would want to punish us like the ungrateful debtor in the parable, but because in a sense he “can’t,” because unless we’re merciful to others, our heart is hardened to receive God’s mercy. The other petitions in the Our Father can all be framed in terms of mercy. We know that God rejoices most for one repentant sinner and the greatest way to hallow his name is to help his prodigal sons and daughters return to his house. To pray for his kingdom to come is to enter it through following Jesus’ words about repentance and faith: “The kingdom of God is at hand: repent and believe in the Gospel.” To do his will is to remember that he desires mercy, not sacrifice. The temptation from which we ask him to protect us is to fail to trust in his mercy or not to share it, because the great work of the evil one from whom we ask him to deliver us is to separate us in this world and eternally from the mercy and grace of God. In teaching us how to have an intimate relationship with the Father, he wants us to relate to him as we do in the Psalm. St. John XXIII, in 1954, wrote in his diary about the treasure of the Gospel: “What matters most in this life is: our blessed Jesus Christ, his holy Church, his Gospel, and in the Gospel above all else the Our Father according to the mind and heart of Jesus.” It’s in this prayer that he learned so much, and it was the mercy found in this prayer that people most remember him. Similarly he wanted us to prepare for the Council through this mercy, writing in an encyclical four months before it began, that penance and receiving God’s mercy was the best way to prepare for the Council so that the “good seed that the Council will scatter far and wide over the Church in those days [will] not be allowed to go to waste,” but rather find “hearts that are ready and prepared, loyal and true.”
Today we don’t seek solace under a gourd plant, but here before the altar, where God the Father’s merciful design reaches its culmination, as we prepare to receive his Son’s body and blood shed on Calvary for the forgiveness of sins. Whether we know our “right hand from our left,” God in his gracious mercy gives us the greatest spiritual treasure of all. As we make this prayer to the same Father with the attitudes Jesus taught us in what we’ve called the Lord’s prayer, we beg him to give us today our “super-substantial” living Bread come down from heaven, so that, one with Mercy incarnate, we might bring that gift of mercy to the Ninevites of today in every country on earth!

The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 JON 4:1-11
Jonah was greatly displeased
and became angry that God did not carry out the evil
he threatened against Nineveh.
He prayed, “I beseech you, LORD,
is not this what I said while I was still in my own country?
This is why I fled at first to Tarshish.
I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God,
slow to anger, rich in clemency, loath to punish.
And now, LORD, please take my life from me;
for it is better for me to die than to live.”
But the LORD asked, “Have you reason to be angry?”
Jonah then left the city for a place to the east of it,
where he built himself a hut and waited under it in the shade,
to see what would happen to the city.
And when the LORD God provided a gourd plant
that grew up over Jonah’s head,
giving shade that relieved him of any discomfort,
Jonah was very happy over the plant.
But the next morning at dawn
God sent a worm that attacked the plant,
so that it withered.
And when the sun arose, God sent a burning east wind;
and the sun beat upon Jonah’s head till he became faint.
Then Jonah asked for death, saying,
“I would be better off dead than alive.”
But God said to Jonah,
“Have you reason to be angry over the plant?”
“I have reason to be angry,” Jonah answered, “angry enough to die.”
Then the LORD said,
“You are concerned over the plant which cost you no labor
and which you did not raise;
it came up in one night and in one night it perished.
And should I not be concerned over Nineveh, the great city,
in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons
who cannot distinguish their right hand from their left,
not to mention the many cattle?”
Responsorial Psalm PS 86:3-4, 5-6, 9-10
R. (15) Lord, you are merciful and gracious.
Have mercy on me, O Lord,
for to you I call all the day.
Gladden the soul of your servant,
for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
R. Lord, you are merciful and gracious.
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
abounding in kindness to all who call upon you.
Hearken, O LORD, to my prayer
and attend to the sound of my pleading.
R. Lord, you are merciful and gracious.
All the nations you have made shall come
and worship you, O Lord,
and glorify your name.
For you are great, and you do wondrous deeds;
you alone are God.
R. Lord, you are merciful and gracious.
AlleluiaROM 8:15BC
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
You have received a spirit of adoption as sons
through which we cry: Abba! Father!
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel LK 11:1-4
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished,
one of his disciples said to him,
“Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.”
He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name,
your Kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread
and forgive us our sins
for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,
and do not subject us to the final test.”
The post The Balm of Divine Mercy, 27th Wednesday (I), October 11, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
17 min
October 10, 2023 The Parable of the Talents and Principled Entrepreneurship, Day of Recollection for the 2023 Principled Entrepreneurship Conference, October 10, 2023
Fr. Roger J. Landry
Hudson Yards, New York
Day of Recollection in Anticipation of the 2023 Principled Entrepreneurship Conference
October 10, 2023
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.10.23_Parable_of_the_Talents_1.mp3

The post The Parable of the Talents and Principled Entrepreneurship, Day of Recollection for the 2023 Principled Entrepreneurship Conference, October 10, 2023 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.
38 min

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