Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Mass for December 21

Memorial of St. Peter Canisius

December 21, 2022

Song 2:8-14, Ps 33, Lk 1:39-45

 

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

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The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* There’s a great irony of proclaiming in today’s first reading from the Song of Songs, “The winter is past,” on the day winter begins, with the winter solstice occurring at 4:48 pm on the East Coast. But the connection will make far greater sense if we understand these words of the Song of Songs from the perspective of today’s O Antiphon* (see explanation below): O Oriens, splendor lucis aeternae et sol iustitiae: veni et illumina sedentes in tenebris et umbra mortis. “O Rising Sun in the East, splendor of eternal light and sun of justice, come, illumine those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death.” Jesus is the Rising Sun and his light — his eternal “Light from Light” — shines in the midst of the greatest darkness and makes the darkest day of the year radiant. Even when we’re walking through the dark valley of the shadow of death, Jesus comes to bring us into the kingdom of light.

* We see this happen in the Gospel. Even though John the Baptist is in the darkness of Elizabeth’s womb, Jesus comes within the womb of Mary and irradiates that darkness with his light and joy. We see the same dynamism in the first reading, the Song of Songs, which is an allegory of the dramatic loving dialogue that’s supposed to happen between God and each one of our souls. Much more than a husband and wife who have been apart for a year run across airports to embrace each other, so our longing is meant to be even greater for God because his longing is greater for us. There’s darkness in separation, but the hope of reunion shines in the midst of that darkness, and when the encounter happens, the long night is forgotten.

* Throughout Advent our desire is supposed to be growing like we see in the Song of Songs. The main purpose of the Advent wreath is to indicate what’s supposed to be happening within us: that week by week, the flame of our intense desire is meant to be doubling, tripling and quadrupling. And that’s what we see in the relationship between Bridegroom and Bride in this passage, which has inspired so many mystics, like St. Bernard, St. John of the Cross and St. Therese, to use it as a paradigm for the loving relationship we’re supposed to have with God. Jesus is coming as a Lover “springing across the mountains, leaping across the hills, … like a gazelle or a young stag.” He was doing that in the Gospel within Mary’s womb before he had even the tiniest of feet. He speaks, continually saying, “Arise, my beloved, my dove, my beautiful one and come!” He wants to raise us from sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, and come to him who loves us, who finds us beautiful and pure. He wants to see us, to hear our voice, to have us “sing a new song” (today’s Responsorial Psalm, literally the “song of the dove,” the song inspired by the Holy Spirit that we’re called to sing to our Emmanuel). This is the whole essence of Advent. Jesus is coming out of love for us because he seeks to espouse us to him forever. He’s coming because he loves us, because he finds us beautiful, and wants, by water and the word,  to make us like a dove, “pure and immaculate in his sight” (Eph 5:25-27).

* In our world, in our souls, the darkness that Christ wants to heal is wherever Christ doesn’t shine. St. John tells us in his Gospel about Jesus, “The light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil” (Jn 3:19).

Fr. Roger J. LandryColumbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, ManhattanMass for December 20December 20, 2022Is 7:10-14, Ps 24, Lk 1:26-38

 

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:

The O Antiphon on which the Church has us meditate today in anticipation of Christ’s birth is “O clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel: qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperit: veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris,” which is translated, “O Key of David, and scepter of the house of Israel, who opens and no man shuts, who shuts and no man opens: come and lead forth the captive who sits in the shadows from his house arrest (his home of prison).”

Jesus is the Key of David who opens and locks the door to heaven. He identifies himself as such in his message to the Church of Philadelphia in the Book of Revelation, where he identified himself as “the holy one, the true, who holds the key of David, who opens and no one shall close, who closes and no one shall open” (Rev 3:6). He was the descendant of David to whom the keys of the kingdom were eventually transmitted and who in turn transmitted them to Peter and his successors. But this reference to a key to open and close goes back to the time of today’s first reading. We encounter King Ahaz who, if you remember the Gospel of Jesus’ genealogy from December 17, was the eighth generation grandson of King David. We’ll return to King Ahaz shortly, but his son, Hezekiah, was one of the most faithful kings in the Davidic line. He replaced the master of his household — Shebna, basically his prime minister, who had allowed the temple of God to become sullied — with Eliakim. God said to Shebna through Isaiah, “I will thrust you from your office and pull you down from your station. On that day I will summon my servant Eliakim, son of Hilkiah; I will clothe him with your robe, and gird him with your sash, and give over to him your authority. He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder; when he opens, no one shall shut, when he shuts, no one shall open.  I will fix him like a peg in a sure spot, to be a place of honor for his family” (Is 22:19-23). Jesus received those keys according to his humanity. As the Archangel Gabriel said to Mary in today’s Gospel about the Son she would conceived in her womb by the power of the Holy Spirit and bear, “The Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end.”

As we draw near to the celebration of Christmas, we prepare to welcome Jesus as that key, the one who comes to lead those sitting in darkness from our house arrest. We recognize that Jesus has come into the world to open up the doors to our prison cells and lead us out of darkness into light. The key he holds is the Cross, which is what — through his passion, death and resurrection — freed us from sin and the death to which it leads and opened up for us a life of grace and the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem.

But while Jesus has done his work of opening up our prisons, we must leave our “house arrest” behind. The doors are open but we must walk out that door. Plato, 500 years before Christ, in his famous work The Republic, gave an allegory (extended metaphor) of a cave, which he puts on the lips of Socrates in one of the most famous philosophical images ever made. Plato describes an underground cave which has an opening toward the light. In this cave there are living human beings chained from childhood in such a way that they face the inside wall of the cave and ha...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Mass for December 19

December 19, 2022

Jdg 13:2-7.24-25, Ps 71, Lk 1:5-25

 

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

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The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* In the second phase of Advent that begins each year on December 17, the Church’s proximate journey to Christmas is accompanied by the ancient “O Antiphons,” called “O” because they all start with a vocative, calling the Lord Jesus by a specific title, and then asking him under that title to do something specific for us when he comes so that we may become more like him. These antiphons were already in use in the 700s in Rome but likely have their origin a few hundred years earlier. In them, we address Jesus in Latin, O Sapientia (O Wisdom), O Adonai (O Lord), O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse), O Clavis David (O Key of David), O Oriens (O Rising Sun), O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations), and finally O Emmanuel (O God-with-us). These Antiphons are prayed by the Church twice a day, originally and principally during Vespers before and after the Magnificat canticle and then during the Alleluia verse to prepare us for the Gospel at Mass. They influence the way we’re supposed to relate to Jesus as he comes into our world, the way we’re supposed to respond with joy to the reception of God’s word. The beautiful Advent hymn we sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” is based on the O Antiphons, but the translation is a little loose and they’ve changed the traditional order. Regardless, it is a beautiful hymn not just to sing but upon which to meditate during this proximate preparation for Christmas. We will use the O Antiphons each day as a prism to understand what the Church gives us in Sacred Scripture and what we ponder in mystery.

* The O Antiphon and readings for December 19 help us to enter more deeply into the dynamism of God’s interaction with us, how he seeks to transform what seems lifeless into something fruitful and sacred and how we need silence to approach these mysteries with a proper sense of wonder. We ponder today the antiphon O radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum, super quem continebunt reges os suum, quem gentes deprecabuntur: veni ad liberandum nos, iam noli tardare, “O root of Jesse, who stand as a sign for the people about whom kings stay silent and before whom all the nations pray: come to free us, do not delay.” These sacred fourth-century words come from two parts of the famous passage from the Book of Isaiah that we heard back on Tuesday of the first week of Advent: “A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom. On that day, the root of Jesse, set up as a signal for the nations, the Gentiles shall seek out for his dwelling shall be glorious” (Is 11:1,10).  The other part of the Antiphon comes from the passage about the Suffering Servant later in Isaiah, when the prophet, speaking about what he would suffer for us, foretells, “Even as many were amazed at him — so marred was his look beyond that of man, and his appearance beyond that of mortals —  so shall he startle many nations, because of him kings shall stand speechless; for those who have not been told shall see, those who have not heard shall ponder it” (Is 52:14-15). Together they reveal to us the shocking surprise of the rise of the shoot from Jesse’s stump. From a stump — which seems sterile, cut down — we don’t expect much growth, but we see that the shoot would eventually reach across the globe and into eternity. Isaiah was referring to King David’s descendant Jesus, who was set up as a sign to the nations of the presence of God. And that leads us to the response before this wondrous transform...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A

December 18, 2022

Is 7:10-14, Ps 24, Rom 1:1-7, Mt 1:18-24

 

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

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The following text guided the homily: 

* We are a week before Christmas and the response that the Church is trying to provoke in us during this home stretch of the Advent Season is encapsulated by today’s Responsorial Psalm refrain: “Let the Lord enter; he is the king of glory.” Throughout this Psalm 24, it talks about raising gates: “Lift up your heads, O gates; rise up, you ancient portals, that the king of glory may enter.” It speaks to the preparation we need to do. We need to lift our heads, we need to open our lives, for Christ the King of glory to enter in. The psalm says that only those with clean hands and pure hearts, in other words holy deeds and intentions, will be ready to go to meet this King of Glory, be present in his holy place, receive his blessings and live in his justice. After we have heeded John the Baptist’s call to make straight the way in the remote phase of period, now in the proximate, as he draws nearer, we’re called to lift up our heads, hearts and lives so that he may fully enter. Many times, we know, we can open ourselves up too little to receive God. We try to squeeze him into a part, sometimes even a small part, of our life. God through the Psalm today is exhorting us not to hold back, but to stretch ourselves and open ourselves totally to accept God as and however he comes.

* Joseph was asked in today’s Gospel to lift high the gates by the Angel after St. Joseph had discovered that Mary was pregnant. Appearing to him in a dream, the angel told him, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.” Joseph was indeed afraid. Some commentators have piously stated that he was afraid because he knew Mary must have conceived miraculously and didn’t consider himself worthy to be associated with the unfolding of such a mystery. Most others, myself included, think that Joseph was afraid, rather, because he loved and totally reverenced Mary and couldn’t understand how she would have become pregnant except in a natural way with someone else; hence his desire to divorce her quietly so that she would be able to be with whoever the father was without being stoned to death for supposed adultery. That’s why the angel was compelled to say, “For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.” The angel wasn’t reiterating what St. Joseph somehow already knew but giving him new information about how Mary had come to be with child. And we see that Joseph stretched himself. He lifted high the gate of his faith and love and, when we awoke, “he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.”

* Joseph’s example is meant to inspire us all. The Church gives us this Gospel on the fourth Sunday of Advent in preparation for the birth of Christ not just because it historically preceded the birth of Jesus but so that we, too, will not be afraid to lift high our gates to take Mary and her Son into our home, into our life, now, at Christmas, and beyond. Even when we know Jesus’ origin and have no doubt whatsoever about Mary’s sinlessness, some of us can nevertheless still be afraid. We can think we’re unworthy. We can be concerned that if we receive Christ, his mother, and St. Joseph into our life not just as visitors but as permanent companions, we will out of our element, we won’t know how to behave, we’ll lose our identity, personality and distinctiveness. But the opposite is true. Christ came so that we might have life and have i...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx NY

Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A

December 18, 2022

Is 7:10-14, Ps 24, Rom 1:1-7, Mt 1:18-24

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.18.22_MC_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* We are a week before Christmas and the response that the Church is trying to provoke in us during this home stretch of the Advent Season is encapsulated, as it normally is, by the Responsorial Psalm: “Let the Lord enter; he is the king of glory.” Throughout this Psalm 24, it talks about raising gates: “Lift up your heads, O gates; rise up, you ancient portals, that the king of glory may enter.” This points to the fact that the gates of the Temple of Jerusalem were too small to permit the entrance of the Ark of the Covenant, which was interpreted at the time as if the people in Jerusalem were not yet ready to receive God into their temple. And as we prepare for the great feast of the Lord in a week, the Church is seeking to make us ready to welcome the Savior. Many times, we know, we can open ourselves up too little to receive God. The Psalm today is exhorting us not to hold back, but to open ourselves totally to accept God as he comes.

* Joseph was asked in today’s Gospel to lift high the gates by the Angel after St. Joseph had discovered that Mary was pregnant. Appearing to him in a dream, the angel told him, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.” Joseph was indeed afraid. Some commentators have piously stated that he was afraid because he knew Mary must have conceived miraculously and didn’t consider himself worthy to be associated with the unfolding of such a mystery. Most others, myself included, think that Joseph was afraid, rather, because he loved and totally reverenced Mary and couldn’t understand how she would have become pregnant except in a natural way with someone else, and hence his desire to divorce her quietly rather than allow her to be stoned to death so that she would be able to be with whoever the father was. That’s why the angel needed to say, “For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.” The angel wasn’t reiterating what St. Joseph someone already knew but giving him new information about how Mary had come to be with child. And we see at the end of the text that when Joseph awoke, “he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.”

* The Church gives us this Gospel on the fourth Sunday of Advent in preparation for the birth of Christ not just because it historically preceded the birth of Jesus but so that we, too, will not be afraid to take Mary and her Son into our home, into our life, now, at Christmas, and beyond. Even when we know Jesus’ origin and have no doubt whatsoever about Mary’s sinlessness, some of us can still be afraid. We can think we’re unworthy. We can be concerned that if we receive Christ, his mother, and St. Joseph into our life, if we open high the gates, we will out of our element, we won’t know how to behave, we’ll lose our personality and distinctiveness. But the opposite is true. Christ came so that we might have life and have it to the full. Mary will love us with the love she had for her Son and that love will help to purify us of whatever disappointment or even hatred we have for ourselves. St. Joseph will protect us and provide for us like he did for the Holy Family. But we have to confront that fear, the fear that can impact even the greatest of saints.

* The rest of the Gospel shows us how to relate to Jesus whom we’re called to receive with his Mother into...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, A, Vigil

December 17, 2022

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.17.22_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy to have a chance to ponder with you the consequential conversation God wants to have with us this Sunday as we enter into the dialogue the Angel of God had with Joseph after he had discovered that Mary was pregnant. Appearing to him in a dream, the angel told him, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.” Joseph was indeed afraid. Some commentators have piously stated that he was afraid because he knew Mary must have conceived miraculously and didn’t consider himself worthy to be associated with the unfolding of such a mystery. Most others, myself included, think that Joseph was afraid, rather, because he loved and totally reverenced Mary and couldn’t understand how she would have become pregnant except in a natural way with someone else, and hence his desire to divorce her quietly rather than allow her to be stoned to death so that she would be able to be with whoever the father was. That’s why the angel needed to say, “For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.” The angel wasn’t reiterating what St. Joseph someone already knew but giving him new information about how Mary was now with child. And we see at the end of the text that when Joseph awoke, “he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.”

* The Church gives us this Gospel on the fourth Sunday of Advent in preparation for the birth of Christ not just because it historically preceded the birth of Jesus but so that we, too, will not be afraid to take Mary and her Son into our home, into our life, now, at Christmas, and beyond. Even when we know Jesus’ origin and have no doubt whatsoever about Mary’s sinlessness, many of us can still be afraid. We can think we’re unworthy. We can be concerned that if we receive Christ, his mother, and St. Joseph into our life, we will out of our element, we won’t know how to behave, we’ll lose our personality and distinctiveness. But the opposite is true. Christ came so that we might have life and have it to the full. Mary will love us with the love she had for her Son and that love will help to purify us of whatever disappointment or even hatred we have for ourselves. St. Joseph will protect us and provide for us like he did for the Holy Family. But we have to confront that fear, the fear that can impact even the greatest of saints.

* The rest of the Gospel shows us how to relate to Jesus whom we’re called to receive with his Mother into our homes. It has to do with the two names by which the Gospel passage tells us we’re called to relate to him. In human life, we know it’s difficult to have a meaningful conversation when we don’t know the name of the person with whom we’re speaking. It’s similar with God. God doesn’t want us trying to converse with him as some type of cosmic higher power or generic force. Throughout salvation history we see him revealing his name. He reveals himself to Moses as YHWH, “I am who am,” and further identified himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, showing he wants to have a personal relationship with each of us. In this Sunday’s Gospel of the appearance of the angel to St. Joseph, we see revealed the names with which Jesus wants us to relate to him as we welcome him, as we allow him to grow within us,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Friday of the Third Week of Advent

December 16, 2022

Is 56:1-3.6-8, Ps 67, Jn 5:33-36

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.16.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were considered in the homily: 

* Today we come to the last day of the first phase of Advent, which extends through December 16. The second phase of Advent begins on December 17 and continues through December 24. Sometimes December 16 can be as quick as the Second Saturday of Advent, when Advent begins on December 3. We’re fortunate that this year, because Christmas is on a Sunday, we get all four full weeks of this great season of preparation with December 16 on Friday of the Third Week of Advent. That means we get the full gamut of the Church’s readings in preparation. Today, the liturgical observation of Friday of the Third Week of Advent, is occurring only for the fourth time since 1994 and we’ll have the chance to celebrate it next in 2033, and so we should take pay extra special attention to the readings because the Church has a chance to hear them only five times in 39 years! They’re particularly important because they bring us into the heart of Advent. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says something really important about St. John the Baptist, on whose witness the Church has been focusing through the Second and Third weeks of Advent. He also says something really important about himself that we need to capture as we near Christmas and the fulfillment of God’s long-awaited plan.

* About John the Baptist, Jesus says that he “testified to the truth,” and by this means not just the truth about marriage and about Herod’s situation for which he was imprisoned and martyred, but the truth about Christ as the Lamb of God who had come to take away the sins of the world, the truth that he was the fulfillment of all God’s prophecies, not just Isaiah 61 and the acts that the Messiah would do, which Jesus himself would use to say “This Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” when he was preaching in the Nazareth synagogue, but all of the Old Testament prophecies that would be summed up in Jesus’ “tetelestai!” (It is fulfilled, accomplished, finished!) from the Cross. Jesus adds that John was a “burning and shining lamp.” He was on fire and that fire lit others on fire. He was a lamp that lit the way not only for the Messiah to come on a prepared path but lit the ways for people to go out to greet him. To continue what we were able to ponder yesterday in how the wise virgins were prepared to meet the Bridegroom coming with lighted lamps, they were able to meet the Bridegroom because the Friend of the Bridegroom, John, was in a certain sense that lamp. In this sense, John testified to the Truth with a capital T, to the Truth incarnate, because it was that Truth, the Light of the World who had come to set the earth on fire, who had ignited John from the womb.

* Jesus also says something very important about himself. He says that he doesn’t need John’s testimony qua John the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth. He doesn’t need or accept “testimony from a human being,” as he says, because through John God the Father was speaking. Jesus himself alluded to this when he once asked those who were questioning his authority a question about whether John’s baptism was of heavenly or human origin (Mt 21:23-27). John’s baptism was of heavenly origin, as was his testimony. But even more so, Jesus say that he had a “testimony greater than John’s,” namely, “the works that the Father gave me to accomplish.” Those testify that “the Father has sent me.” Indeed they do. They are the fulfillment of all of the Messianic prophecies.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Thursday of the Third Week in Advent

December 15, 2022

Is 54:1-10, Ps 30, Lk 7:24-30

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.15.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* As we draw within ten days of the celebration of Christmas, the Prophet Isaiah tonight takes us to the heart of why Jesus became man and was born of the Virgin. It wasn’t so that we could have annual holiday cheer to finish the civil year. It wasn’t so that we could have a time of beautiful self-sacrifice as we give gifts to each other. It wasn’t merely so that people could acknowledge a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes as God-with-us and Savior. It was ultimately so that God, after the infidelity of Adam and Even and all of us through sin, could restore us to a covenant of love with him.

* Today God tells us through Isaiah, “Fear not, you shall not be put to shame. … He who has become your husband is your Maker; … your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, the God of all the earth. The Lord calls you back. … With great tenderness I will take you back. … With enduring love I take pity on you, says the Lord, your redeemer. … My love shall never leave you nor my convent … be shaken.” This prophecy about God’s spousal love for us God likewise announced to us through Hosea, who wrote, “So I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart. … On that day, says the Lord, She shall call me “My husband,” and never again “My baal.” … I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the Lord” (Hos 2:16-22). We will focus on this reality also at the Vigil Mass for Christmas, when God will tell us anew, in fulfillment of today’s passage from Isaiah, “No more shall people call you ‘Forsaken’ or your land ‘Desolate,’ but you shall be called ‘My Delight’ and your land ‘Espoused.’ For the Lord delights in you and makes your land his spouse. As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so shall your God rejoice in you.” This prophecy about the nuptial Covenant God was making with his people was fulfilled in Jesus, who called himself the Bridegroom (Mt 9:15). St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians describes Jesus as a husband who loved his Bride the Church and laid down his life to make her holy, cleansing her by water and the word, so that she might be holy and without blemish (Eph 5:25-27). This is all very powerful imagery to describe something not metaphorical but absolutely real: Christ Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s total loving commitment to us, his desire to enter into a covenant of love with us in which we will commit to love him with all our mind, heart, soul and strength, to love and honor him in good and bad times, in sickness and health, in poverty and prosperity all our days. The ultimate purpose of Advent is to help us renew our first love for God as we ponder his love for us. It’s a time in which to examine whether we’ve been true to him and to recommit ourselves. It’s a time in which to see if our relationship with him is passionate, faithful, indissoluble and fruitful.

* To help us make that assessment, the Church gives us every Advent the figure of St. John the Baptist, who identified himself as “the friend of the Bridegroom who stands and listens to him [and] rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice” (Jn 3:29). This expression means the “best man,” whose job at the time of Jesus was to help protect the bride and get her ready to receive the bridegroom when,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent

Memorial of St. Lucy, Virgin and Martyr

December 13, 2022

Zeph 3:1-2.9-13, Ps 34, Mt 21:28-32

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.13.22_Homily.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* The essential dynamism of Advent is that Christ is coming, we need to make straight the paths to go out to meet him, and, having encountered him, to be transformed by him so deeply that we begin to journey with him henceforth. The Lord comes with his mercy and we go out to meet him in such a way that we will “turn with” him who is God-with-us. As we begin today the “twelve days before Christmas,” today’s readings help us to make the conversion necessary, to lower the mountains of our pride and fill up the valleys of anything spiritual shallowness that shirks from seeking to become holy like God is holy.

* In the Gospel, Jesus gives a parable of two sons. The first refuses to do the father’s will but eventually repents and does it, whereas the second merely gives lip service, saying he’ll do it but not following through. This is an illustration of what Jesus had said elsewhere, that it’s not enough for us to say “Lord, Lord,” but we need to “do the will of [his] Father in heaven.” Jesus illustrates the choice with regard to St. John the Baptist. He came preaching conversion, a message that the prostitutes and tax collectors were acting upon but many of the scribes and elders were not. Similarly, it’s important for us to ask ourselves whether we’ve acted on John’s call to conversion like so many across the centuries have in Advent. All of Advent, in the words of St. John the Baptist, is meant to bring us to change our behavior, not just to say “Amen!” to the Lord but to make our life an illustration of it. The real model of this, of course, is Mary, who, as we were able to ponder a little yesterday on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, not only said, “Let it be done to me according to your word,” but then let her entire life develop in accordance with that word. Regardless, today’s parable could be called the parable of a second chance: that after an initial refusal, or many failures to do what God was wanting, he has now given us this Advent in order to go out and work in the vineyard, building his kingdom, bringing others to the same type of conversion in correspondence to grace as we have done.

* In the first reading, we see not only the need to conversion but the help and hope God gives us. God through Zephaniah pronounces woe on the “rebellious,” “polluted” and “tyrannical” city that “hears no voice,” “accepts no correction,” “has not trusted in the Lord” and “has not drawn near to her God.” These are four different descriptions of sin. Sin is a failure to listen to God’s voice and obey it, as Pope Benedict powerfully described in Verbum Domini. When we sin, we often become too proud to receive fraternal correction even for our own good. We fail to trust in God and in his promises. And we marginalize him or withdraw from him. This Advent we’re called to do the opposite: to listen, to seek correction from God and others, to trust ever more in the Lord and draw close to him. Zephaniah describes that if we seek to do this, God will meet us with his mercy. He will “change and purify the lips of the peoples,” he says, so that “they may all call upon the name of the Lord,” “serve him with one accord” and “bring offerings” to him. He promises to create a “remnant” that will be “humble and lowly,” who will “take refuge in the name of the Lord,” who “shall do no wrong and speak no lies,” who shall not speak with deceitful tongues but “pasture and co...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

December 12, 2022

Rev 11:19.12:1-6.10, Judith 13:18-19, Lk 1:39-47

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.12.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

 

The following points were attempted in this homily: 

* “How does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” This question asked by St. Elizabeth in the Visitation ought to be asked by each of us today on this great feast of the Patroness of America, Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mary identified herself to St. Juan Diego in Tepeyac as the “Mother of God” and then later as our “Merciful Mother” and she came there as a woman on a mission. A specific type of mission. She’s pregnant with Jesus seeking to bring him to others. In the Gospel, we see what she does as soon as she became pregnant by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit: she went with haste to care for her cousin Elizabeth, forming her embryonic son to be the itinerant missionary he would become before he even had developed the tiniest of feet. And when she arrived in Ein Karim, Jesus blessed his in utero cousin John the Baptist in the womb, preparing him for his own mission as the precursor of the Messiah, as the great Advent prophet sent to prepare the way for Christ to come. Likewise in the first reading from the Book of Revelation, we see Mary pregnant once again, this time with the Church — we know it’s the Church because she “wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth,” something that didn’t happen in Bethlehem, but certainly happened on Calvary as Jesus announced to her that she was to be the mother of the human race — seeking to help bring to birth in all of God’s children the image and likeness of her Son Jesus. Mary seeks to do for us what Jesus entrusted her to do as he was dying on the Cross: to help bring her Son to birth in us. When Mary appeared to St. Juan Diego, when she imprinted her image in his tilma 491 years ago today, she did so as a pregnant Aztec princess, a symbol that she was about to give birth to her son here in our continent, in our hemisphere. Christianity had arrived in Mexico just a short ten years before but there were relatively few converts because most of the indigenous people were turned off by the conquistadors rather than turned on by the Franciscan missionaries to the Lord both groups claimed to believe in. But after her appearance and seeing the image of this mestiza woman — which was an harmoniously beautiful mix between Indian and Spanish features, showing the compatibility of the Gospel being announced by the Spanish Franciscans and the Indian nature — there started to be converts by the millions. Ten million came to the faith in just the next decade.

* The mission Our Lady of Guadalupe gave to St. Juan Diego shows us how Mary sought to give birth to her Son in his hemisphere. It wasn’t merely bringing people to baptism and the sacraments. It was incorporating them into her Son’s saving mission. It was helping them to continue her own work of bringing Christ to birth in others. When she identified herself to St. Juan Diego, she said, “Am I not here who am your Mother?” She identified herself as his merciful Mother and told him she wanted a place built where she could “hear [her sons’ and daughters’] weeping, their complaints and heal all their sorrows, hardships and sufferings.” In this kairos of Mercy in which we’re living in the Church and the world, Mary wants to show herself to be our merciful Mother, to hear our sorrows, hardships and sufferings, and to help us to become like Juan Diego, facilitating her doing that for so many others. St. Juan Diego’s vocation story shows us all how each of us,