Fr. Roger J. Landry

Saint Monica Parish, Kalamazoo, MI

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, C

July 17, 2022

Gen 18:1-10, Ps 15, Col 1:24-28, Lk 10:38-42

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/7.17.22_Homily_1000_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

It is such a great joy for me to be with you, brothers and sisters, to celebrate with you, and thank God abundantly for, the upcoming twentieth anniversary of perpetual Eucharistic adoration here at St. Monica’s. For the last 7,217 days, Jesus Christ has been here blessing those who have come into his presence, and for the previous 173,199 (8 am) [173,201 (10 am); 173,203 (noon)] hours and counting, one or more from Saint Monica’s and Catholics from surrounding parishes have been here to receive Jesus’ Eucharistic love and to love him back. What an incredible gift on the part of the Lord and what an extraordinarily grateful response on behalf of this parish!

To get to this point requires more than just a pastor on fire like Father Lawrence Farrell, who ardently loved the Lord Jesus and longed to see Jesus loved and adored by his people. It demands more than a few devout parishioners who share those loves and act on them, making commitments rain or shine, sleet or snow, health or pandemic, to come to be with Jesus who never ceases to be truly present for us. It is a collective work that needs at least hundreds of committed people, hour by hour, week by week, year by year, in a holy relay of faith and love. And that’s what the parishioners of Saint Monica’s have remarkably done together. And so we celebrate these 20 years of graces, with gratitude to God for all the prayers heard, souls converted, minds renewed, wounds healed, miracles granted, vocations unveiled, disciples strengthened, families transformed, apostolates initiated, neighborhoods and cities changed, and states, countries and the world lifted up.

My name is Father Roger Landry and it’s a great honor for me to be here to celebrate with you, and without a doubt, with Saint Monica, Our Lady, St. Joseph and all the happy heavenly host of angels and saints. I’m a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, and am one of 56 priests the US Bishops have appointed as National Eucharistic Preachers as part of the three-year Eucharistic Revival that the Church in the United States began a month ago on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi. I’m grateful to your new pastor, Father Russell Homic, to Deacon Kurt Lucas, and to Anne Cooper, the Head Coordinator of St. Monica’s Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration Chapel for their invitation to come to preach this Parish Eucharistic Mission, for their warm welcome, and for all the work they’ve done in preparation for it.

The U.S. Bishops have initiated this three-year Eucharistic revival because they know the Church in our country is presently experiencing a crisis in Eucharistic faith and love. Extensive recent surveys have shown, for example, that only three of ten Catholics believe what the Church believes about the Holy Eucharist, that after the words of consecration, what began as bread and wine are totally changed — the technical term is transubstantiated — into Jesus Christ, his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. The Eucharist is not a symbol. The Eucharist is not bread and wine. The Eucharist is really, truly, and substantially Jesus, the same Jesus through whom all things were made, who took on human nature in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was adored by shepherds and magi, grew up and worked as a carpenter in Nazareth, precociously amazed the scholars in the temple, was baptized by John in the Jordan, who called the apostles, preached from mountains, valleys, boats and synagogues,