Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time, C, Vigil

August 13, 2022

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/8.13.22_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy 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 as Jesus tells us emphatically in the Gospel why he left heaven, became man, lived, preached, suffered, was murdered, rose and ascended. It’s something every Catholic needs to ponder deeply, prayerfully and frequently. “I have come to set the earth on fire,” Jesus says, “and how I wish it were already blazing!” Just like the Holy Spirit was sent down as tongues of fire to ignite the members of the early Church with the passion to live and preach the Gospel until the ends of the earth, Jesus came down with the same holy ardor, the same white-hot love, to make us his torch bearers and set the world ablaze with the light of his truth and the fire of his mercy. He wants to do to us in life what happens symbolically at our baptism and is renewed every year at the Easter Vigil, when Jesus, like the flame of the Paschal Candle, comes to light us — symbolized by a taper or baptismal candle — on fire with true Christian combustion and make us living tapers, who receive the flame of faith from him and then pass on that passion to those around us.

* Ten years ago, Pope Benedict, commenting on Jesus’ words from this Sunday’s Gospel, spoke about the fire of faith and how important it is for each of us to allow the Holy Spirit to melt whatever in us is cold or frozen. In doing so he pointed out the greatest danger for us as Christian disciples and the biggest obstacle to our proclaiming the faith and bringing people to Christ. “There’s a passion of ours,” Pope Benedict said, “that must grow from faith, which must be transformed into the fire of charity. Jesus said: ‘I came to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled.’ Origen [the great third century theologian] has conveyed us a word of the Lord: “Whoever is near me is near the fire.” The Christian must not be lukewarm. The Book of Revelation tells us that this is the greatest danger for a Christian: not that he may say ‘no,’ but that he may say a very lukewarm ‘yes.’ This being lukewarm is what discredits Christianity. Faith must become in us a flame of love, a flame that really fires up my being, becomes the great passion of my being, and so that it fires also my neighbor.”

* It is crucial for us to understand what Pope Benedict underlined. First, to be near Christ, he said, is to be near the fire. If we’re truly drawing close to Christ in prayer, in the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Confession, in charity toward others, in the communion that is the Church, then we can’t help but get fired up. The problem is that often we try to draw near to God with asbestos around our hearts. We say our prayers, but rush through them without love. We show up to Mass but leave our enthusiasm at home. We should be more passionate about God speaking to us and feeding us at Mass than the biggest baseball fans rejoice to be at their home park for the World Series.  The fact that few of us behave this way in God’s presence is a sign of tepidity.

* Second, Pope Benedict said that lukewarmness is the “greatest danger for a Christian,” that in response to God and the gift of his love, we give only a half-hearted yes with a shrug of our shoulders. In the Book of Revelation, Jesus said to the Church in Laodicea,