Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

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

July 8, 2023

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/7.8.23_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday, when the Lord Jesus is going to give us one of the most incredible invitations we’ve ever received and, if we say yes to it, one of the most unbelievable guarantees.

* The God-man, our Savior, will say to us, “Come to me, all you who labor and find life burdensome.” That’s the invitation: “Come to me all you who are working hard but can’t see to fully get your head above water to feel secure; come to me all you who are burdened with anxieties of family life, work, schooling, age or health; come to me all you who are weighed down by sorrows, who are going through life with heavy hearts because you’ve lost a loved one or are worried about someone close to you; come to me all you who are pressed down by your sins and the harm sins always bring; all of you, come.”

* After this invitation, he gives us the extraordinary promise: “And I will refresh you.” Think about what Jesus is saying: “All of you who have problems in human life, come to me, and I will renew you, bring you back to life, and make you see the blessing in what you see as a burden.”

* That’s what he said to his listeners two thousand years ago — who must have been shocked by so categorical a promise — and that’s what he says to each one of us this Sunday. Any there any takers? Don’t all of us need Jesus’ help to bear heavy burdens?

* Many of us during these days have some vacation. Starting from the time we’re students, we look to the summer as a kind of respite from the burdens of study or work. Today Jesus is telling us not to look toward the beach or the mountains as the source of our refreshment, but to him.

* To understand better Jesus’ amazing offer, we have to look at whom Jesus is summoning to this reinvigoration. There’s a prerequisite, a condition, to this call. Jesus addresses the invitation to those who are “labor” and are carrying heavy burdens. He is not summoning to himself as they are those who are lazy, who pass the buck, who don’t roll up their sleeves and work up a sweat. He’s not inviting those who are seeking a comfortable, easy life. To those in these circumstances, he calls them first to conversion, because they’re not yet ready to receive his rest. And there’s a good reason for that. Because when Jesus says “follow me!,” he’s not intending to lead us to a resort or a superyacht; he’s going to lead us along the same path he trod, which was a hard-working path all the way to Calvary. That’s why Jesus is speaking to those who are working hard, who are striving to take responsibility for their own life, for the life of their loved ones, for society, for their country, for the Church, who are pushing themselves in love to the limit, because it’s only they who would recognize that rest with Jesus comes not through inactivity but through a special joint activity with him, as we’ll talk about a little later. Remember what Jesus a few weeks ago told us to pray for: he urged us ask the Harvest Master, his Father, to send not bodies but “laborers into his vineyard” (Mt 9:38). The way to our salvation and the salvation of others in his vineyard is through responding to all his gifts with faith, love, fatigue and perspiration. It’s those who labor, and they alone,