Fr. Roger J. Landry

Clergy Days for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia

“The Celebration of the Eucharist: Its Central Place in the Eucharistic Revival”

The Grand Hotel, Cape May, NJ

March 21, 2023

 

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Preaching the Eucharist- Relating the Homily to the Eucharistic Prayer

 

 

 

 

 

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Clergy Days for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia

“The Celebration of the Eucharist: Its Central Place in the Eucharistic Revival”

The Grand Hotel, Cape May, NJ

March 20, 2023

 

To listen to an audio recording of this conference, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.20.23_Sacrifice_of_the_Mass_1.mp3

 

To download a PDF copy of the slides of the presentation, please click below: 

A Living Sacrifice of Praise- Some Revived Dimensions of the Mystery of the Eucharist

 

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Solemnity of St. Joseph

March 20, 2023

2 Sam 7:4-5.12-14.16, Ps 89, Rom 4:13.16-18.22, Mt 1:16.18-21.24

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.20.23_Homily_1.mp3

 

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: [to be filled out]

* One of the great joys of my priesthood has been to see how the Church has been growing in devotion to St. Joseph. From December 8, 2020 through December 8, 2021, the Church marked a Year of St. Joseph, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the December 8, 1870 declaration by Bl. Pope Pius IX of St. Joseph’s being declared patron of the universal church. At the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis extended St. John XXIII’s decision to include St. Joseph in Eucharistic Prayer I to all of the other Eucharistic Prayers. Many, helped by Fr. Donald Calloway’s book, have been consecrating themselves to St. Joseph and his protection. In an age in which authentic manliness and the importance of fatherhood have been underappreciated not just in popular culture and education but in various pockets of the Church, devotion to St. Joseph is a very healthy remedy. Today is an opportunity for us to express our gratitude for, and receive more deeply, the protection and provision God wants to give us through Saint Joseph, entrusting ourselves to his spiritual fatherhood and intercession. The best way, however, to mark this great feast — like the feast of any saint — is to seek to imitate St. Joseph in his holiness. As Pope Leo XIII wrote, “There is no doubt that [Joseph] approached nearer than any other to that super-eminent dignity of [Mary] by which the Mother of God surpasses all created natures.” For Pope Leo, St. Joseph is second on the hierarchy of holiness right behind his immaculate and sinless spouse. Today we can ponder ten special features of his holiness, ten virtues that he contagiously and helpfully exemplifies.

* First, St. Joseph is just — St. Matthew writes that St. Joseph was a “just” or “righteous” man, a synonym for “holy,” a person in a right relationship with God. He may not have been flashy on the outside but he shone on the inside. St. Frances de Sales once said about him, “He was ‘a just man,’ and so his will was at all times attuned, conformed and united to the will of God.” As Pope Benedict once said in a rare play on words, St. Joseph “ad-justed” his life to the word of God. His whole life was in relationship to God. He shows us how to attune our lives fully to God’s will.

* Second, he is faithful based on total trust in God— Like Abraham, to whom he is implicitly compared in today’s second reading, St. Joseph is a “father in faith” to us. His example invites us to imitate his loving trust, his total abandonment to divine Providence, to take God “at his word,” that is, without clearly seeing his design. When the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home,” he did as the angel had commanded him precisely because he believed. Bishop Jacques Bénigne Bossuet commented in his famous 17th-century panegyrics, “The Bible commends Abraham to us as the pattern of perfect faith (Rom. 4:11), but Joseph’s faith was greater: Abraham is praised because he believed that a barren woman would bear a child (Gen. 15:6); Joseph believed the same of a virgin, and in simplicity accepted that inscrutable mystery of child-bearing maidenhood.” Pope Benedict said 14 years ago today in Cameroon, “Throughout all of history, Joseph is the man who gives God the greatest display of trust, even in the face of such astonishing news.” To say that his is the greatest display of trust of all is something extraordin...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year A

March 19, 2023

1 Sam 16:1.6-7.10-13, Ps 23, Eph 5:8-14, Jn 9:1-41

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.19.23_Homily_CCM_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* The third to fifth Sundays of Lent are meant to help those preparing for baptism at Easter, and all those already baptized in the Church accompanying them, to realize crucial realities about the Sacrament and the Christian life to which it leads. Last week, in the encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well, we see Jesus’ thirst for us and the type of thirst we’re supposed to have for him who is the living water. Baptism, in other words, is not just a ceremony, but an immersion in Christ’s own life, and we’re supposed to hunger and thirst for the holiness life in Christ imparts. Next week, we’ll accompany Jesus as he raises his friend Lazarus from the dead, and we’ll have the change to ponder how in baptism we die and rise anew in Christ, as we put to death in us the old Adam and at Christ’s voice come forth from the tomb to live with him.

* Today on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, the Church has us meditate on the illumination Christ imparts in baptism. Just as at St. Paul’s baptism, scales fell from his eyes after he was blinded meeting Christ outside the Damascus city gates, so in every baptism our eyes are meant to be opened to see all things differently. This process is depicted in the famous miracle by which Christ heals a man blind from birth in today’s Gospel. The blind doesn’t cry out for help. He’s just there, along the road, and becomes the subject of a theological question from the disciples about the cause of his blindness. Jesus states that the reason that man was blind from birth was to allow God’s works to show through him; his whole life in darkness until that point was so that he could encounter the saving power of Jesus and from that moment onward be a conspicuous example of God’s own light illuminating him so that he might walk in light. This truth influences the way Jesus performs this miracle, because Jesus had two healings in mind — first a physical one for him and then a spiritual one for him and for us all.

* The Lord spits on the ground, makes mud with his saliva, and then goes up unbidden to the blind man and smears his eyes with mud. What must the blind man have been thinking? What would your reaction be, for example, if someone right now came up from behind you and put muddy saliva on your eyelids? The blind man in the Gospel could have easily thought that someone was making fun of him or abusing him, as probably happened often. But the Lord was not done. Jesus then tells him to go to wash in the pool of Siloam. The blind man easily could have thought, “What a stupid, pointless and dangerous hassle! Cover me with mud and spit and then send me, who can’t see, to wash in a pool, where I can easily fall in and drown!” Jesus, however, must have given that command in a way that inspired trust. By his willingness to carry out this simple imperative Jesus gives him, the blind man embarks, without knowing it, on the great adventure of faith, on the exciting journey from darkness into light. Jesus allows this man to participate actively in his own healing, so that through the process, he might receive not just the ability to see the physical light of the world but also a much deeper light, the light of faith in Jesus, the true light of the world.

* Three-and-a-half weeks ago, Jesus did something to us similar to what he did to the man born blind in today’s Gospel. We went up to someone acting in His Name,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY

Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year A

March 19, 2023

1 Sam 16:1.6-7.10-13, Ps 23, Eph 5:8-14, Jn 9:1-41

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.19.23_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* In today’s Gospel, something very different happens than in all the other miracles in which Jesus cured those who had no sight. First, unlike in the other cases, the blind man doesn’t cry out for help. He’s just there, along the road, and becomes the subject of a theological question from the disciples about the cause of his blindness. Jesus states that the reason that man was blind from birth was to allow God’s works to show through him; his whole life in darkness until that point was so that he could encounter the saving power of Jesus and from that moment onward be a conspicuous example of God’s own light shining ever more brightly through him. That truth influences the way Jesus performs this miracle, because Jesus had two healings in mind — first a physical one for him and then a spiritual one for him and for us all.

* The Lord spits on the ground, makes mud with his saliva, and then goes up unbidden to the blind man and smears his eyes with mud. What must the blind man have been thinking? What would your reaction be, for example, if you were praying here with your eyes closed and someone else suddenly came up to you from behind and put muddy saliva on your eyelids? The blind man in the Gospel could have easily thought that someone was making fun of him or abusing him, as probably happened often. But the Lord is not done. Jesus then tells him to go to wash in the pool of Siloam. The blind man easily could have thought, “What a stupid, pointless and dangerous hassle! Make me dirty and then send me, who can’t see, to wash in a pool, where I could easily fall in and drown!” Jesus, however, must have given that command in a way that inspired trust. By his willingness to carry out this simple imperative Jesus gives him, the man embarks, without knowing it, on the great adventure of faith, on the exciting journey from darkness into light. Jesus allows this man, unlike the other blind men he cured — and this is the second difference from the other cures Jesus worked — to participate actively in his own healing, so that through the process, he might receive not just the ability to see the physical light of the world but also a much deeper light, the light of faith in Jesus, the true light of the world.

* Three-and-a-half weeks ago, Jesus did something to us similar to what he did to the man born blind in today’s Gospel. We went up to someone acting in His Name, who smudged our foreheads not with muddy saliva but moistened ashes, and gave us a two-part command, the very same directive with which Jesus began His whole public ministry, “Repent and believe in the Gospel!” This was Jesus’ pathway for us to participate in our own healing during this blessed time of Lent, in our own coming from the darkness into the light of Christ, in our own exodus from sin to love, in our own Passover from death to life. Some might be tempted to consider this more or less an empty ritual, something merely symbolic — especially if we are blind to our own sinfulness! —  but Jesus wanted to work in us during this time a true miracle of healing, through our participation and trust in this two-part therapeutic process.

* The pathway for the cure of our blindness begins with repenting, which means turning away from the life of sin that blinds us. As the Catechism and human experience teach so clearly, sin darkens the intellect and distorts the will so that often we can no longer even see the good clearly or easily choose it when...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. John’s Parish, McLean, Virginia

Parish Day of Recollection: “The Eucharistic Revival and a Holy Lent”

March 18, 2023

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.18.23_Eucharistic_Apostolate_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. John’s Parish, McLean, Virginia

Parish Day of Recollection: “The Eucharistic Revival and a Holy Lent”

March 18, 2023

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.18.23_Eucharistic_Almsgiving_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. John’s Parish, McLean, Virginia

Parish Day of Recollection: “The Eucharistic Revival and a Holy Lent”

March 18, 2023

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.18.23_Desert_Adoration_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. John’s Parish, McLean, Virginia

Saturday of the Third Week of Lent

March 18, 2023

Hos 6:1-6, Ps 51, Lk 18:9-14

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.18.23_Homily_1.mp3

 

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today, as we enter more deeply into the Eucharistic dimension of Lent, the readings help us focus on the connection between God’s mercy and the right worship of God. Pope Benedict once commented on the fact that at the beginning of the Last Supper Christ washed the feet of his apostles. In his dialogue with St. Peter, when St. Peter first objected to having Christ do the work of a slave and wash his feet, Jesus told him that unless Peter allowed him to wash his feet, he would have no part in him. Then Peter asked to have not just his feet washed but his hands and head as well, but Jesus said that one who has been bathed has no need to but to have his feet washed. Pope Benedict said that the bathing to which Jesus referred was baptism and the washing of the feet, that part of us that is in contact with the world, refers to the Sacrament of Confession. It is a prelude to how, in order to celebrate Mass well, come washed in God’s mercy.

* “I desire mercy!,” God says to us today through the Prophet Hosea and that we repeat in the Responsorial Psalm. God desires mercy! He desires it in two ways. First, he desires to share with us his mercy. God’s greatest joy is forgiving, Pope Francis continually repeats, following what Jesus teaches us in the three parables of the Lost Sheep, Coin and Son. He wants us to receive that gift of his compassionate love. But he also desires us, having received it, to be transformed so that we, too, may pass on that mercy to others. He says he desires mercy instead of sacrifice, with sacrifice understood as the slaughtering of animals as an external act of repentance. The type of sacrifice he wants, we pray in today’s Psalm, is a “contrite spirit,” for “a heart contrite and humbled” God will never spurn. We seek to come before the Lord at Mass with that type of spirit and heart, made so by his mercy that wipes out our offenses, thoroughly washes us from our guilt and cleanses us of our sins.

* God wants us to grow in our receiving his mercy and our sharing in it. That’s what’s pointed to in the image of Hosea in today’s first reading. God says that the piety of those in Ephraim (Samaria) and Judah is “like a morning cloud, like the dew that early passes away.” It’s a powerful image. In context, their faithfulness to receiving and sharing his merciful love is like dew on the grass that just doesn’t last. It evaporates as the day draws near. It passes away in the middle of the day and as life goes on. God’s people started out faithfully early in life but that piety dissipated. God was saying through the prophet that he wanted to show mercy, but that they weren’t open to receiving it. They weren’t persevering in receiving it. Hosea instructed them that the Lord had been trying to bring them to conversion, but they were superficial like the dew. “Come, let us return to the Lord, it is he who has rent, but he will heal us; he has struck us, but he will bind our wounds. He will revive us after two days; on the third day he will raise us up, to live in his presence [a clear reference to how he will do it through Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection!] … He will come to us like the rain, like spring rain that waters the earth.” Sometimes our life, sometimes our day, can begin like the beautiful refreshing dew, with all types of sentiments and actions of piety and faith, with great recognition of our need for God and his merciful love, but then we allow that inner reverence and love to...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. John’s Parish, McLean, Virginia

Parish Day of Recollection: “The Eucharistic Revival and a Holy Lent”

March 17, 2023

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.17.23_Fasting_for_the_Feast_of_Faith_1.mp3