Humbly Following the Lord Along the Path of the Beatitudes, Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A), February 1, 2026

Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Chapel of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
February 1, 2026
Zeph 2:3.3:12-13, Ps 146, 1 Cor 1:26-31, Mt 5:1-12

Today’s homily was not recorded because of the failing of the recording device. The following text guided the homily: 

• Last Sunday, we celebrated for the seventh time Sunday of the Word of God and had a chance to focus on how we listen to God when he speaks to us, particularly through Sacred Scripture by which he speaks to us all. St. James urged the first Christians, “Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls” (James 1:21). Each of us is urged to follow the advice given to the young future prophet Samuel, to say to God with reverence, openness, and humble receptivity, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening” (1 Sam 3:9-11). We’re all called to respond like the post-exilic Jews when Ezra opened the rediscovered scrolls and read to them the Word of God from dawn to midday; they people stood, listened attentively, raised their hands high, wept, then prostrated themselves and said “Amen, amen!,” before with joy throwing a huge celebration in gratitude for the treasure God had given.
• Every Sunday is meant to be, in some sense, a Sunday of the Word of God. We come to listen, because God is speaking when the Scriptures are opened. Like in the Synagogue of Nazareth, Jesus says, “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing,” and the Word of God is meant to be fulfilled not just in our hearing but in our being. We humbly listen to God’s word and words as words to be done. Like our Lady at the Annunciation, we say, “Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum!,” “Let my whole life develop according to your word.” With emotions from tears to joyful celebration, each time we hear the word of God, we’re called say ultimately “Amen, Amen!,” and with faith commit ourselves to making what we’ve heard the inspiration and direction of our life as we seek to live in communion with the God who has lovingly spoken.
• Today God speaks to us, underlining the importance of humility and of trust as he seeks to show us how to live in a way peculiarly his own. In today’s first reading, the Prophet Zephaniah, after telling the seventh century people of Judah about the consequences of their sinful behavior that would result in the exile, gives them a promise of hope and a summons. He says that he will “leave as a remnant in your midst a people humble and lowly, who shall take refuge in the name of the Lord.” These would be the people who were not doing evil or speaking lies and deceiving with their tongues, but rather who had been seeking the Lord, observing his law — observing what he has said to them — and therefore pursuing justice and humility. The remnant would be the “humble of the earth,” interiorly in terms of how they related to God and exteriorly in terms of the way the world related to them. It would not just be the few that survived the exile who would worship on God’s holy mountain, but also the humble to whom Jesus would address the Good News when he came, in fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies, to announce the Gospel to the poor. The remnant is, therefore, an image of the Kingdom of God, of the Church, that would begin humbly as a lowly mustard seed and by the power of the Holy Spirit and the fulfillment of the Word of God grow.
• Paul picks up on this theme of the humble, lowly and virtuous remnant in today’s passage from his First Letter to the Corinthians, when he tells the first Christians and us, “Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God.” The remnant would be those whom the world considers foolish, weak, lowly and despised. It would include a young girl from Nazareth and a hardworking yet impoverished builder who were able to secure only a stable for childbirth and the indigent offering of pair of turtledoves at the presentation. It would include a fisherman whose first words were that he was a sinful man, a despised tax collector, a woman who had had seven demons, as well as the sick, crippled, blind, lame, and formerly possessed. It would ultimately include you and me. God chose us in our lowliness to help others become humble, in our dependence on God’s wisdom to help others learn to accept and live by it, in our low social standing and the disdain we can get from the elites of the age to help others learn not to boast before God but to boast in the Lord and his goodness.
• This is the proper preparation we need to understand the moral revolution Jesus introduces in today’s Gospel at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus teaches us the principles of how we as his followers, in contrast both to the Scribes and Pharisees and the Gentiles, are supposed to live. Jesus presents to us that the way to follow him to happiness, holiness, and heaven is through humility. The path he charts stands in stark contrast to the path that the vast majority of people in the world — especially the worldly wise, strong, noble, rich and influential — believe will make us happy. It’s through the beatitudes that the faithful remnant will be revealed. It’s through living them that those “foolish” enough to follow Christ will shame the wise, those “weak” enough to depend on him will shame the strong, and those “lowly and despised” enough will shame the proud. Are we humble enough to welcome this word of God that has the power to save our souls? Are we humble enough to trust in what Jesus says in contrast to the way the vast majority in the world teach us to live?
• The Beatitudes are hard to accept and live because they are so far from what most in the world, including so many in the Church, value.
  • The world tells us that to be happy, we have to be rich. Jesus says, rather, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they will inherit the kingdom of heaven.” Are we humble enough to choose the path of spiritual poverty?
  • The world tells us we’re happy when we don’t have a concern in the world. Jesus says, on the other hand, “Blessed are those” who are so concerned with others that “they mourn” over their own and others’ miseries, “for they will be comforted” by him eternally. Can we accept this word and weep over all sin and the suffering it causes?
  • Worldly know-it-alls say, “You have to be strong and powerful to be happy.” Jesus, in contrast, retorts, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Do we trust in Jesus enough to become like him “meek and humble of heart?”
  • The spiritually worldly shout increasingly more each day, “To be happy, you’ve got to have all your sexual fantasies fulfilled” and our culture promotes handsome womanizers and makes celebrities of promiscuous starlets as those who have it made. Jesus, however, says “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” Are we able to be humbly reverent before the image of God in ourselves and others and never exploit but also protect it?
  • The world preaches, “You’re happy when you accept yourself,” espouses an “I’m okay, you’re okay,” brand of moral relativism, and advocates a culture of comfort. Jesus says, though, “Blessed are those who hungerand thirst for holiness, for his grace and justification, for they will be filled.” Are we already satiated like the rich man in the parable with Lazarus at his gate, or are we hungry for God and for the holy things of God?
  • The world says, “You’re happy when you don’t start a fight, but finish it” and people from presidents and prime ministers, to bosses and generals, to boxers and wrestlers, all flex their muscles, live by “might makes right” and shout “No mercy,” Jesus says “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy” and “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Are we humble enough to forgive and to seek to make peace with those who have made us or others their adversaries?
  • Our American culture increasingly says, “You’re happy when everyone considers you nice, when you don’t have an enemy in the world.” Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” and “blessed are you when people revile you, persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account,” “for their reward will be the kingdom of heaven. Are we sufficiently humble to suffer in fidelity to him who for our sake humbled himself accepting even death on a Cross?
• Jesus, who promised that the first would be last and the last first, who deposes the mighty from their thrones and exalts the humble, blesses those whom the world generally regards as weak. As St. John Paul II once said to young people on the Mount of the Beatitudes, Jesus basically says to us, “Blessed are you who seem to be losers, because you are the real winners: the kingdom of heaven is yours!” In doing this, Jesus is essentially summoning us to become like him, who ultimately through his humbly taking on human nature, being born among animals, his decades of hidden life, and especially through his preaching, passion, death and resurrection would shame the wise, strong, and somethings of the world.
  • Jesus was poor, so poor he didn’t even have a place to lay his head (Lk 9:58). And this physical poverty featured the richness of true poverty in spirit, in which he treasured God the Father and his kingdom as his greatest gift.
  • Jesus mourned. He wept over Jerusalem (Lk 19:41), which failed to recognize the path to true peace and whose residents so often killed those God sent to indicate that path to them (Mt 23:37).
  • Jesus was meek. He identified himself as “meek and humble of heart” and told us to learn him in his meekness and humility (Mt 11:29).
  • Jesus hungered and thirsted for righteousness, saying that his very hunger, his very “food [was] to do the will of him who sent me and complete his work” (Jn 4:34).
  • Jesus was merciful, as we see in the episode with the woman caught in adultery (Jn 8:3ff), with Peter after Resurrection (Jn 21), with the sinner who washed his feet with her tears (Lk 7:44), with the Samaritan woman (Jn 4), with the paralyzed man lowered through the roof by friends (Mt 9:2), with the centurion whose son was dying (Mt 8:5), with the Syrophoenician woman whose daughter was ill (Mt 15:22) and so many more.
  • Jesus was pure in heart. Jesus taught that out of our heart flows our thoughts and our deeds. Out of the good tree of a good heart flows good fruit. On the contrary, he added, “it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come (Mk 7:21-22). A pure heart, like that of Jesus, sees and loves God the Father and his will in every situation.
  • Jesus was a peacemaker. He was, in fact, the “Prince of Peace” (Is 9:6), who effectuated the definitive peace treaty between God and man and signed it in his own blood. During the Last Supper he said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (Jn 14:27). And he sent out his apostles to be true peacemakers, announcing this peace — his peace — to the world (Lk 10:5).
  • Jesus was persecuted for the sake of righteousness. From the scribes and Pharisees, to those in his hometown of Nazareth, to the false witnesses at his trial, to the Roman soldiers, to the passersby on Calvary, to Herod, to Pilate, to the thief on his left, so many reviled him, persecuted him and uttered all kinds of evil against him falsely. But he rejoiced, because this was the path of our salvation and it made possible a great reward for us in heaven.
• So Jesus teaches us the humble way of the Beatitudes, the path of happiness, holiness and heaven, not just by his words, but by his actions and very person. In this, as in everything else he taught, he never says merely, “do what I say,” but always “follow me!” Jesus does not merely preach the beatitudes. Nor does he merely practice what he preaches, by living them. As Pope John Paul II said once in a homily to young people, Jesus is the beatitudes. “Looking at Him,” the Holy Father said, “you will see what it means to be poor in spirit, gentle and merciful, to mourn, to care for what is right, to be pure in heart, to make peace, even to be blessed while persecuted. This is why he has the right to say, ‘Come, follow me!’” Pope Leo picked up on this theme today in his Angelus meditation to the thousands assembled in St. Peter’s Square. He said, “Only God can satisfy those who seek peace and justice, because he is the just judge of the world and the author of eternal peace. Only in God do the meek, the merciful and the pure of heart find joy, because he is the fulfilment of their expectations. In persecution, God is the source of redemption; in falsehood, he is the anchor of truth. Therefore, Jesus proclaims: ‘Rejoice and be glad!’” But this is a word of contradiction, the Holy Father stated, to the expectations of the world. “Those who expect the arrogant to always rule the earth are surprised by the Lord’s words. Those who are accustomed to thinking that happiness belongs to the rich may believe that Jesus is deluded. The delusion, however, lies precisely in the lack of faith in Christ. He is the poor man who shares his life with everyone, the meek man who perseveres in suffering, the peacemaker persecuted to death on the cross. In this way, Jesus illuminates the meaning of history. It is no longer written by conquerors, but rather by God, who is able to accomplish it by saving the oppressed.”
• Today, we seek to respond to the Word of God, especially Jesus’ ever countercultural words, with a double “Amen, Amen!” At St. Paul’s behest, we “consider our calling” and thank God for the gift of our vocation to be in that lowly remnant that, in becoming like Jesus, will continue his mission of helping the world become meek and humble like him. Here at Mass he seeks to help us become truly united to him so that, through imitating his beatific virtues, we may come with him to eternal beatitude. Jesus in the Eucharist is the treasure of the poor in spirit, the comfort of those who mourn, the inheritance of the meek, and the nourishment of those who hunger and thirst for holiness. He is Mercy Incarnate for those who are merciful, the Lamb of God whom the pure of heart behold, the Prince of Peace whom the children of God embrace. He is the great reward of those who are insulted, calumniated and persecuted on account of him. Though him, with him and in him, we humbly boast and like the returnees from Babylon in the temple area, we celebrate the gift of God’s word to us today with the greatest feast of all. Amen! Amen!

These were the readings for the Mass:  

But I will leave as a remnant in your midst
a people humble and lowly,
who shall take refuge in the name of the LORD:
the remnant of Israel.
They shall do no wrong
and speak no lies;
nor shall there be found in their mouths
a deceitful tongue;
they shall pasture and couch their flocks
with none to disturb them.