Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

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

July 1, 2023

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/7.1.23_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. It’s a fitting conversation to have as we mark this long weekend in preparation for the celebration of the Fourth of July, in which we not only just celebrate the gift of our hard-won freedom, but have a chance to ponder its purpose.

* Freedom is a gift that comes with a task. Like water, which can be used to drink or to drown, the gift of freedom can be used for good or ill. If we use it well, it will become stronger; if we abuse it, it can undermine its own foundations. In the sad case of addictions, someone uses his freedom to have a beer, but then abuses it to have a case, and slowly but surely becomes enslaved to alcohol, no longer free to say no. Culturally we are seeing freedoms abused with greater frequency: free speech is exploited to defend pornography, freedom of religion to defend Satanic practices, the so-called freedom-to-choose to end the lives of human beings in the womb. The more freedom is abused, the more enslaved and less free, we become. To stay free, we must use freedom properly. Freedom is not the license to do whatever we want, wherever we want, whenever we want, without the interference of anyone else. It’s not the power to pretend that we’re God, determining good and evil, even deciding over life and death. Freedom, rather, is the capacity to act in accordance with the truth about who we are in God’s image and likeness. It’s a self-mastery that makes it possible for us to give of ourselves to others in love.

* When Pope Benedict came to the White House 15 years ago this April, he gave a challenge to Americans to use our freedom to stay free. “Freedom,” he said, “is not only a gift, but also a summons to personal responsibility. … The preservation of freedom calls for the cultivation of virtue, self-discipline, sacrifice for the common good and a sense of responsibility towards the less fortunate. It also demands the courage to engage in civic life and to bring one’s deepest beliefs and values to reasoned public debate. In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good.”

* So how are we going to respond to that challenge? How are we going to use our freedom to grow as God intends?

* Jesus in this Sunday’s Gospel speaks about the two essential aspects of our Christian life, discipleship and apostolate, our following Jesus and our proclaiming him, our work to become holy as God is holy and our fidelity to the mission he gives us to become instruments in the sanctification of others.

* He speaks to us, first, about the conditions of discipleship. He tells us, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” He reminds us that to be his disciple, to enter into his kingdom, requires a decisive choice. We must freely choose to love him more than father and mother, more than son or daughter. We must freely choose to embrace our cross and follow him along this way of sacrificial love,