Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time, A, Vigil

February 18, 2023

 

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The following text guided the homily:

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy to have a chance to ponder with you the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with us this Sunday, as Jesus takes us further into his famous Sermon on the Mount. As we have pondered the last few weeks, Jesus has been calling us, as his disciples, to live by his standards, not by the standards of others. Last week, he told us that our relationship with God must surpass that of the scribes and the Pharisees, who were the most religiously observant Jews. This Sunday he tells us that we need to do better than the tax collectors who love those who love them, than the upright Gentiles who greet and do good to those who greet and do good to them. He calls us to live by God the Father’s standards, which he personifies.

* Jesus this Sunday puts an exclamation point on this calling. “Therefore,” he tells us, “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Many people when they hear this are thrown off by the word “perfect” and think that this is an unachievable standard, because, after all, none of us is perfect, none of us will ever be perfect, and so if God is calling us never to make a mistake, then he’s calling us to something beyond human capacity. We therefore feel justified in dismissing what Jesus says as if it’s clearly impossible. But before we ignore what Jesus is calling us to, as if he couldn’t possibly have meant it, we should focus on a couple of things:

* First, the main emphasis of what Jesus is saying is “Be like your heavenly Father.” Earlier in the passage he gave us specific exhortations so that we “may be children of [our] Father in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” Jesus implies that we will not really become children of God until we start behaving like God, that he can be our Father without our being his children unless we experience the inner revolution to which Jesus is calling us and unless we seek to act as God’s children, to behave like Jesus who shows us how to live as a son or daughter of God. Just as God the Father loves everyone and does good to everyone, including those who curse him, including those who make themselves his enemy through sin and an evil life, including those who try to use him whenever they need him, Jesus calls us to do the same, to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, to walk the second mile, to give our cloak as well as our tunic, to give generously to all those who need to borrow. We’re called to be good — to let our sun or life-giving rain fall — not just on those who are good to us but even on those who are not good to us, just like the Father does. This is the path to true holiness, Jesus implies. This is the means by which we become, in action, sons and daughters of our heavenly Father, by behaving as he behaves.

* Second, to understand what Jesus means when he calls us to be “perfect” like our Father in heaven, we have to grasp the Greek word St. Matthew employs. The Greek word St. Matthew uses is “teleios,” which is the adjective that comes from the noun “telos,” which means “end” or “goal.” Teleios means fit to achieve its end or purpose. A hammer, for example, is teleios for pounding in a nail. A student is teleios when he has mastered the material, lives it and can teach it to others.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Campus Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Friday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of the Seven Founders of the Servite Order

February 17, 2023

Gen 11:1-9, Ps 33, Mk 8:34-9:1

 

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: 

* One of the most important things to learn in the life of faith is about the proper interplay between God’s actions and ours. God acts first and our first action must be in response to his, namely to cooperate with him, to let him do his thing. I like to say that the Christian life is a fiat (“let it be done to me according to your word”), not a faciam (“I will do”). The perennial temptation is for us to try to act first, to seek to be in control, to structure the relationship with God on our terms rather than on his. We see this temptation in all its clarity in today’s first reading, in the scene of the building of the Tower of Babel, an historical event that takes on added meaning in this metropolis of skyscrapers!

* After the regeneration of the human race with Noah, it didn’t take long for the residents of Babel to say, “Let us build ourselves a city … and so make a name for ourselves.” On the surface, it seems like a simple story of human initiative, but there was much more going on: they were coordinating not to allow God to build them up as a people for the glory of his name — something he had been doing since creation and after the second chance with Noah. They were trying to establish a relationship with God on their own terms through a tower reaching God’s dwelling in the heavens and to allow his name (signifying his person) wane in importance to the glory of their own name, ingenuity and engineering. They were seeking to hallow their own name instead of God’s, to build their own kingdom rather than the kingdom of God, to do their will instead of the Lord’s. And so God responded by confusing their speech so that they wouldn’t understand each other and be able to conspire in such a way. God’s penances are always medicinal, and we see that once again here: God confuses speech so that they would no longer prioritizing conversing with each other to the exclusion of God. He wanted them, rather, to dialogue with him and learn from that conversation how to order their social relations. The Responsorial Psalm draws a contrast between the way God will often frustrate our plans when they would harm the fulfillment of his own: “The Lord brings to nought the plans of nations. He foils the designs of peoples. But the plan of the Lord stands forever. The design of his heart through all generations.” Because God has “fashioned the heart of each, and knows all their works,” he’s able to do this adroitly. But God was confusing their speech only for a time. He was awaiting the time in which he would redeem us and restore our capacity to use our speech to converse with God and about him, to use our ability to communicate to bring us into communion with God and others. That’s what happened on Pentecost. Each year during the Pentecost Vigil, today’s first reading is proclaimed as the first of four Old Testament readings, and the Church prays in the Opening Collect that God will grant that “from out of the scattered nations the confusion of many tongues may be gathered by heavenly grace into one great confession of your name” and later, that God’s “Church may always remain that holy people, formed as one by the unity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” and “manifest to the world the Sacrament of your holiness and unity and leads it to the perfection of your charity.”

* This switch between our building a tower supposedly to God and...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Thursday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

February 16, 2023

Gen 9:1-13, Ps 102, Mk 8:27-33

 

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

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The following points were attempted in today’s homily: 

* After taking a poll of what others were saying about him — as he was told the multitudes numbered him among the greatest figures of all time for his Jewish contemporaries, like Elijah, John the Baptist or one of the prophets — Jesus asks his closest followers to pronounce on his identity: “Who do you say that I am?” It brings up the reality that we cannot just rely on what others say or think. Our most important choices are to state reality and respond as we should. Jesus didn’t want those with him merely to remain “fans” of him because that would not set them on the path on which he had come into the world to lead them. He wanted to see if they had seen what they should have seen, whether they had the courage to admit it and then the commitment to act on it.

* Even though Nathaniel (aka Bartholomew) had upon hearing that Jesus had seen him under the figure proclaimed Jesus to be the Son of God and King of Israel (Jn 1:49), he remained mute here. Ten of the other apostles didn’t speak up, either, perhaps because they didn’t know, but more likely because they knew that stating as a fact what they had long been speculating about would be a consequential acknowledgment, and they were afraid. It was Peter who stood up and said, “You are the Christ.” He admitted that he was the Messiah, the long-awaited one. In St. Matthew’s recollection of the account, he added, “The Son of the Living God,” which is an even greater claim, an illumination that came from God the Father because he couldn’t have arrived at that knowledge by human means (“flesh and blood.”).  After Peter’s confession, Jesus instructed them not to tell anyone because the people at the time had clearly political notions about the Messiah and Jesus didn’t want to be boxed into those false categories. But even though Peter had admitted Jesus’ identity, he, too, retained false notions. When Jesus openly said that he “must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days,” Peter, thinking according to his human categories rather than “as God thinks,” rebuked Jesus. He couldn’t fathom that a Messiah would be rejected and killed rather than conquer. But Jesus wanted to help him and all of the apostles recognize that, yes, he was the Messiah, but his kingdom and the liberation he was bringing were different than what they were expecting. His words, “Get behind me, Satan!,” are significant because Peter had become a stumbling block, a tempter, and was trying to lead the Lord rather than follow. He sought to be out in front of Jesus, rather than behind him, and was recapitulating what the Devil tried to do in the desert, to impede Christ’s fulfillment of his mission. He wasn’t seeing things from God’s perspective but from his own. Having recognized who Christ is, and confessed him, Peter was now being summoned to see and confess him in far greater depth.

* This question, “Whom do you say that I am?,” Jesus makes to us constantly and individually. It’s not enough for us to rest on what others say, on what the Catechism teaches, about what the Doctors of the Church, or the Pope, or the Bishops, or parents, godparents and religious superiors declare. All of that is helpful, but it’s not sufficient: we all must make a consequential admission, to state clearly who Jesus is and to conform our life to that truth, getting behind him,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Wednesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of St. Claude La Colombière

February 15, 2023

Gen 8:6-13.20-22, Ps 116, Mk 8:22-26

 

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 in the Gospel Jesus does something noteworthy. Unlike the other recorded miracles of Jesus where he healed instantaneously by his touch or by his words, today he heals a blind man progressively, in stages. After Jesus puts spit on his eyelids, the man can see people looking like walking trees; the next time he did it he could see everything distinctly. Jesus obviously had the power to heal him of his blindness instantaneously, but he progressively healed him, I believe, in order to help the man persevere in hope and faith. Many of Jesus’ miracles since then are progressive. He heals us in stages, so that we, too, may grow in the Christian virtues of patience, perseverance and faith in contact with Jesus’ sacred humanity touching our own.

* Today we can ponder how Jesus seeks progressively to heal us, to heal our sight, so that we can see things in his light. Jesus worked this miracle in the Gospel immediately before the scene tomorrow when he’ll ask the apostles and us who we believe him to be. The apostles needed God’s help to see who he really is. Some thought initially he was the Messiah, others didn’t, but they all needed to grasp that he was also the Son of God. Peter confesses him as the Christ and Son of God by the grace of the healing of his mind by God the Father. We, too, need that healing to see him and confess him. And we need to continue to see him as the Messiah as he both foretells and then accomplishes our redemption by being betrayed, suffering, dying and rising. That’s why prior to today’s Gospel we asked for that illumination with the words of St. Paul to the Ephesians, “May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ enlighten the eyes of our hearts, that we may know what is the hope that belongs to his call.” We’re asking perpetually for that enlightenment, that healing of our interior darkness, of the heart that symbolizes the core of our being and the will to believe. God heals our heart and illumines us, most of the time, gradually, and in far more than two steps!

* In order for God to work our progressive healing, we need to be patient. We need to trust in him as he takes us, like the man in today’s Gospel, step by step. Many of us would want to be cured instantaneously, but he goes in stages with many of our cures precisely so that we can grow in faith and trust along the journey. We see the type of patience we need in Noah today. After enduring 40 straight days of torrential downpours, his waiting wasn’t over; now he needed to wait for the waters to recede enough for a dove to bring back a leaf. He would need to wait far longer for the land to be exposed. But wait he did, because he trusted in God and in all the stages he was taking in the regeneration of the human race. He saw things more clearly at each step.

* Discussing our vision and the patience and help needed to see things in the eyes of God is a good introduction to the saint whom the Church celebrates today, St. Claude la Colombière (1641-1682). He is most famous for his having been for a short but crucial time the spiritual director of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, to whom Jesus appeared to reveal the mystery of his Sacred Heart. Even though she had been receiving apparitions of Jesus, there was so much she didn’t understand. St.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Campus Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Tuesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of SS. Cyril & Methodius

February 14, 2023

Gen 6:5-8.7:1-5.10, Ps 29, Mk 8:14-21

 

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: 

* “Do you still not understand?” So Jesus asks the disciples and asks us. The specific context was about leaven when he warned them about the leaven — the corrosive teaching and example — on the one hand of the rigorist Pharisees and on the other the laxist Herodians. He wanted, rather, the leaven of faith (Mt 13:33), that a tiny bit of faith when placed in the “dough” of God’s power was able to accomplish great things. Jesus showed what a little bit of this leaven could do in the two miracles of the multiplication of the loaves and fish. He wants us to trust that with faith the size of a mustard seed we could move mountains, with some water in jars at a wedding we could have wine, with 12 relative nobodies we could have a message go out to all of the world. “Do you still not understand?,” he asks.

* Noah in today’s first reading is a sign of this leaven of faith. God asks Noah to build a huge ark and to do so, not in a big ship building yard but in the middle of nowhere, far from the ocean. The dimensions of the ark — 300 x 50 x 30 cubits, with a cubit being 18 inches or half a yard — were huge and would have taken some time to build. For weeks and months, people around him must have thought he was nuts. Imagine trying to build the Queen Elizabeth II on a farm in Iowa or up in the Rocky Mountains, far from water. But Noah trusted in the Lord and built. With his faith in God, he was the leaven for the renewal of creation. God always starts small and builds. We see that with the Israelites, with the tribe of Judah within God’s people, with the “remnant,” ultimately with Mary and Joseph, and then the apostles. Many get corrupted by the leaven of the world or pseudo-religion. God always looks for the leaven of faith.

* As the Fathers of the Church were accustomed to preach, the Church is meant to function as Noah’s Ark, bringing everybody to salvation on the barque of Peter despite the storms of life on the water. The “nave” or central aisle of a Church is named because the Church is meant to be the “navis” or ship like the ark as a means of rescue. Christ is like Noah on that ark of Peter.

* We see that in God’s plan of salvation on the ark he brought not just individuals, not just random people and animals, but heterosexual pairs. As God instructed, “Of all other living creatures you shall bring two into the ark, one male and one female, that you may keep them alive with you” (Gen 6:19). The reason is somewhat obvious, for the re-propagation of the various species. But it also brings us back to the beginning of Creation, which we heard about last week, that it is not good for man to be alone and God created not just the animals for him but a “fitting helper,” not a twin, but a woman, with whom he could image God. On this St. Valentine’s Day, this points to the importance of marriage for the renewal of the world after the devil tries to destroy Adam’s and Eve’s bond and every other. Married couples are called through the Sacrament of Marriage to help each other onto the ark as it heads toward the eternal shore.

* But it’s not just married pairs that are part of salvation. God sent out the first disciples two-by-two even though they could have covered far more ground going out singly. The reason, however, is so that they could announce the good news by how they lived it, loving each other,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Monday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of Blessed James Miller, Martyr

February 13, 2023

Gen 4:1-15.25, Ps 50, Mk 8:11-13

 

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, as the Church has us ponder Cain’s killing his brother Abel, we remember that that sacrifice is a type, a foreshadowing, of the killing of Christ, “whose blood speaks more eloquently than that of Abel” (Heb 12:24). We see the start of that fratricide and attempted Deicide in today’s Gospel in the way that the Pharisees were asking Jesus for a sign in order to test him. Jesus had already worked many signs — healings, exorcisms, multiplications of loaves and fish, calming the winds and the sea — but they didn’t want to accept any of them. In fact they opposed all the signs he was doing on the Sabbath. They would similarly reject the one sign he elsewhere said he would give them, the sign of Jonah — his spending three days in the belly of the earth and then being raised from the dead — in which they themselves would participate in playing the role of Cain. Today they, although outwardly religious, were trying to entrap Christ so that they could put him to death. Rather than opening themselves to him, they closed themselves and the murder of this Innocent One was only the conclusion of a process that began with their rejection and envy.

* As Jesus said yesterday from the Sermon on the Mount, murder always flows from within us, from anger, insult, hatred. The Book of Wisdom highlights this process when it prophesies about what was going on in the hearts of those who conspired against Jesus: “Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he opposes our actions, reproaches us for transgressions of the law and charges us with violations of our training. He professes to have knowledge of God and styles himself a child of the Lord. To us he is the censure of our thoughts; merely to see him is a hardship for us. Because his life is not like that of others, and different are his ways. He judges us debased; he holds aloof from our paths as from things impure. He calls blest the destiny of the righteous and boasts that God is his Father. Let us see whether his words be true; let us find out what will happen to him in the end. For if the righteous one is the son of God, God will help him and deliver him from the hand of his foes. With violence and torture let us put him to the test that we may have proof of his gentleness and try his patience.Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him. These were their thoughts, but they erred; for their wickedness blinded them. And they did not know the hidden counsels of God; neither did they count on a recompense for holiness nor discern the innocent souls’ reward” (Wis 2:10-22).

* The inaugural example in history of this type of murderous envy is in today’s first reading, when Cain slew his brother Abel. On Friday, we saw the typical structure of sin. If we didn’t have the patronal Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes on Saturday, we would have seen its effects. Today we are able to look at those truths from another angle. There are several steps involved:

* Abel “brought one of the best firstlings of his flock” to sacrifice to God whereas Cain simply brought “an offering,” and God looked with favor on the first and not on the second. The first step in not sinning but rather in growing in relationship with God is to give him our best, to love him with all our mind, heart, soul and strength.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Bronx, NY

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

February 12, 2023

Sir 15:15-20, Ps 119, 1Cor 2:6-10, Mt 5:17-37

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.12.23_Homily_CCM_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* Later tonight, over a billion people will tune in to behold human excellence on a field in Glendale Arizona. We will watch Andy Reid match wits with Nick Sirianni, Quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts match arms and legs, Tight End Travis Kelce clash for big-catch superiority against receivers AJ Brown and Devonta Smith, defensive stars Chris Jones and Nick Bolton go head to head with all-Pro linemen Lane Johnson and Jayson Kelce, and even kickers Harrison Butker and Jake Elliott compete at distance, accuracy and even over who gets the chance to kick a glorious game-winner. One of the perennial attractions of sports is that they’re a school in which we are formed in so many virtues and skills necessary for life: teamwork, self-discipline, asceticism, docility, selflessness, dependability, perseverance, focus, preparation and training, poise under pressure, sportsmanship, how to celebrate and how to handle setbacks. Sports can bring people together in common purpose, whether we’re dealing with high schools, universities, huge geographical regions, or, in the Olympics and World Cup, whole nations. Sports have also proven to be culturally and historically far more than just games, expediting processes of racial integration and the overcoming of warring tensions.

* Jesus came from heaven to earth to form a team and he’s drafted each of us not to be a spectator, but to play. To use the analogy of football, some will be star quarterbacks and receivers, others will be hardworking lineman, nose tackles and linebackers, others will be special teamers, coaches, video editors, trainers even water boys. But we all have an important role in helping the team win not just momentary earthly renown but an imperishable eternal crown. But we need to have the same drive for excellence as we see in professional athletes, demonstrated not just when the cameras are on, but as they hit the weight room, stretch, study film, eat and sleep. We likewise need to receive good coaching all along the way.

* In today’s readings, Jesus, our head coach, summons us toward excellence. Members of the divine coaching staff, Sirach, David and Paul, all help us to recognize that real spiritual greatness is within our grasp and give us key tips on what we need to seize it. So let’s listen attentively to this coaching that is meant to help us, together, toward the only hall of fame that really matters.

* Paul speaks to us about what type of coaching we’ll receive and follow. There are, he says, two types of wisdom. The first is the “wisdom of this age” which is “doomed to perish.” It comes from coaches who will never win anything lasting. The other, he says, is the wisdom of the “mature,” namely, “God’s wisdom,” which is “secret and hidden” to the so-called clever of any epoch, but will lead us to “what no eye has seen, no ear heard, nor any human heart conceived.” It is what “God has revealed” to those of us who “love him.” Jesus’ coaching, as we will see, is far different from those in the world, but is the path to true spiritual maturity, to full stature as a human being and a Christian.

* Sirach in the first reading focuses on whether we will choose to live by divine wisdom. He tell us, “If you choose, you can keep the commandments. To act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. He has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand to whichever you choose. Before each person are life and death,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

February 12, 2023

Sir 15:15-20, Ps 119, 1 Cor 2:6-10, Mt 5:17-37

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.12.23_Homily_MCs_1.mp3

 

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* Over the last two weeks, we have entered into the first two parts of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The main point of what Jesus is teaching us in this most famous of his sermons is that we, as his disciples, are called to live by a special set of standards, Christian standards, Jesus’ own standards. Jesus wants to live by a higher set of principles than the norms of the good pagans who love those who love them and do good to those who are good to them. The holiness to which he calls us, he tell us today, is supposed to be higher than the standards even of the most observant Jews. Unless our righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, he stresses, will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. So the stakes, in this life and the next, can’t be higher and what he’s going to tell us is too important to ignore.

* Today Jesus sets out the first five of seven different ways that as his disciples our holiness is supposed to surpass others’. These are seven different ways that we’re called, like him, to “fulfill the law and the prophets.” These are seven different ways we are called to be “great in his kingdom” by acting on these principles and teaching others to do the same.

* Before we examine what those first five are, it’s important to contextualize the response the Lord is asking of us by examining what God teaches us in the other three readings today. They’re all like appetizers to get our appetites ready for the main course.

* In today’s first reading, Sirach tells us, “If you choose, you can keep the commandments. To act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. He has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand to whichever you choose. Before each person are life and death, and whichever one chooses will be given.” In other words, God has made us free, free to accept his wisdom or free to reject it, free to choose to burn in fire, or free to live according to the cool, living water of our baptism. What Jesus describes to us today is something that he puts to our freedom. If we seek heaven, if we seek to be with Jesus forever, then we’re going to freely embrace his words and choose to follow him down the path he indicates. The choice is ours and it’s the most important of our life.

* In the responsorial psalm, we see two things. First, we behold how blessed is the one who walks in the law of the Lord, who observes what the Lord says, who seek him with all his or her heart. Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount reminding us of the blessings for those who are poor in spirit, pure of heart, meek, merciful and peacemaking, who mourn, hunger and thirst for holiness, and who are willing to suffer on account of the faith. Those who keep the beatitudes are the ones who walk in the law of the Lord, who walk in his ways and footsteps, and, as Jesus says eight different times, they are indeed blessed! But we also see that before someone walks in the law of the Lord, one must desire to do so. That’s why the psalmist prays, “Oh, that I might be firm in the ways of keeping your statutes! Be good to your servant, that I may live and keep your words. Open my eyes, that I may consider the wonders of your law. … Give me discernment so that I may observe your law and keep it with all my heart.” Before we get into the truths to which Jesus will open our eyes in the Gospel, we begin by praying for the strength to be firm in following his words,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame de Lourdes Church, Manhattan

Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes

February 11, 2023

Is 66:10-14, Judith 13:18-19, Jn 2:1-11

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.11.23_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, whose first of 18 appearances to St. Bernadette took place 165 years ago in the Grotto of Massabielle at the foot of the Pyrenees in Lourdes, France. Because of the connection of Lourdes with the suffering, it’s also the World Day of the Sick, in which we pray and resolve to care for those who ill or in need. Our Lady of Lourdes is a clear personification of the compassion of God, of the mercy that he wants each of us to receive and share.

* In the first reading, God through the Prophet Isaiah urges everyone to look at Jerusalem as a mother, to rejoice and exult because of her, to suck fully of the milk of her comfort and nurse with delight at her breasts, to be carried in her arms and fondled in her lap. “As a mother comforts her child,” God tells us through the prophet, “so will I comfort you.” Mary is an incarnation of this image of Jerusalem and today we rejoice and exult because of her, come to be breastfed off her faith, hope and love in God, to let her embrace us with love, carry us in life, and comfort and strengthen us so that we might imitate her charity.

* We see that charity on display in the Gospel scene of the wedding feast of Cana. Before seemingly anyone had noticed that there was a problem, not the couple, not the parents of the bride, not even the headwaiter, Mary with maternal care had sprung into action, asking Jesus, even though it wasn’t yet his hour, to work his first miracle to prevent an embarrassing disaster. With confidence she persevered in her request and got the servants to commit to do whatever her Son said. And Jesus worked that stupendous miracle, which led many to begin to believe in him. Mary is constantly, with maternal love and vigilance, bringing our needs before her Son before we may even be aware that we need her intercession. How many graces and even miracles she has gotten her Son to work for us without our even knowing! Today we turn to her and say, truthfully and full of gratitude, “You are the highest honor of our race!”

* She appeared to St. Bernadette in order to unleash a huge torrent of charity. She asked for a shrine to be built so that it could be a house of prayer, prayer for the sick, prayer for conversion. Over the last 165 years, in Lourdes there has been a great theophany of charity. It’s so moving to see hundreds of Good Samaritans who come to help with the malades, the sick, rolling them in wheelchairs to the baths, in the processions, at Mass, to their residences, and so much more. It’s moving to see so thousands of other volunteers who care for pilgrims, who try to embrace them with the love with which God wants. Just as much as Mary chose St. Bernadette to help extend that mission of maternal love, so she is praying that each of us will respond to the same vocation and mission. The summit of the Christian life is unselfish Christ-like love of others, and the Blessed Mother came to Lourdes to help us all be transformed by God’s love in such a way that we seek to share that love with others. She wants to inspire us to help all those who are physically ill, spiritually sick, emotionally wounded or otherwise in need. We do that first by our prayers, but the fruit of prayer is always charity. Pope Francis, in his Message for the World Day of the Sick, said, “On 11 February 2023,

Fr. Roger Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Reflection on St. Bernadette Soubirous

February 11, 2023

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.11.23_St._Bernadette_Edited_1.mp3

 

This is the outline for the meditation: 

* Introduction

* February 18, 2004 Mass at the Grotto where Our Lady appeared to her.

* Five lessons she can teach us

* First Lesson — Humility, in birth, education, poverty, suspicion, as a result of the apparitions, in the convent.

* Second Lesson — Prayer, together with Mary, in view of a Church where people could pray. Prayer especially for sinners, as our Lady asked.

* Third Lesson — Redemptive suffering, her own and then at Lourdes.

* Fourth Lesson — The Sign of the Cross, the “summit of our faith” (Pope Benedict XVI)

* Fifth Lesson — The Eucharist, her first Communion, comparing the apparitions to Holy Communion, our sublime destiny.