Fr. Roger J. Landry
Biographical Questions in Preparation to Serve as a National Eucharistic Preacher
February 5, 2022
This interview was conducted via email by Sr. Alicia Torres, as part of the on boarding for the appointment by the USCCB as a National Eucharistic Preacher for the National Eucharistic Revival scheduled to take place from June 2022 through July 2024.
When did you first sense the call to the priesthood?
When I was four. My mother took my twin brother and me to daily Mass. When elderly Fr. Jon Cantwell said the words of consecration I thought that if I were tall enough to climb up onto the altar and peer into the chalice I would see coagulates (although I wouldn’t have known that word). I watched him hobble down the marble stairs to give the Lord to those who were old enough and lucky enough to receive him. I thought, “The priest must be the luckiest man in the whole world, capable of holding Jesus in his hands and giving him to others.” After he had finished distributing Holy Communion, he brought the ciborium over to the tabernacle, on the side altar, which was basically in front of me. He put Jesus in the tabernacle, struggled heroically to make a genuflection, shut the door and returned to the altar for the purification. I just kept staring at the tabernacle door, recognizing Jesus was behind it. And I asked Jesus that day to make me a priest. I was an altar boy for ten years and worked at a rectory, mainly to stay close to Jesus and his priests. I would recognize as a freshman in college that the priesthood was a calling, not just a desire, but from the time I was four, I was filled with a desire to be a priest that never left me. When I was finally ordained at 29, I already had 25 years of experience looking at the world from the perspective of a future priest.
When did you first realize/discover that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist?
My mother — a daily communicant from the time she was a teenager — had catechized me very well and from the time she told me as an infant that the Eucharist is Jesus, I was given the gift of faith to believe it fully. When I was four, as mentioned above, that awareness deepened and I asked for the vocation to be a priest from the moment I realized the consequence of Jesus’ Real Presence and the awesome privilege to be able to have the incarnation occur in your hands and to share the greatest gift in the world with those who hunger for him. Later, during my first days in college at Harvard, my Eucharistic faith grew more concrete. I asked myself, “Is there anything more important I could be doing on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday than receiving God within?” I knew what the obvious answer was. And Jesus has given me the grace up until now of never having missed receiving him every day since September 24, 1988.
Why did you say “yes” to the invitation to serve as a National Eucharistic Preacher?
The first reason was because Bishop da Cunha of Fall River emailed me last September 22 to ask if I would accept an appointment. That was the first I had heard that there would be National Eucharistic Preachers. But even if he had not asked me, once I found out about it, I would have asked him, much in the same way I approached him to be nominated as a papal Missionary of Mercy during the Jubilee Year. I think the national Eucharistic Revival is super important for the present and future of the Church in the US and I am honored to be able to share, however humbly, in trying to foster greater love and amazement for the Eucharistic Lord. Every homily I’ve preached since my diaconal ordination in 1998 has finished going from the Verbum Domini to the Verbum Caro Factum Est on the altar and I can’t wait to have a chance to try to help even one person grow in love of the Lord, because I’m convinced that more than the Blessed Mother longed to receive Jesus anew within her from St. John’s hands, more than all the saints and mystics combined have hungered to consume Jesus, he desires to give himself to us, to spend time with us in prayer before him in the tabernacles and monstrances and to help make our lives commentaries on the words of consecration.
What does it mean to be a “Eucharistic” Preacher?
It means, first, to proclaim the “res mirabilis,” (wondrous reality) that poor and humble creatures can consume and enter into holy communion with the Lord Jesus. St. Thomas Aquinas’words, “Quantum potes, tantum aude” — dare to do all you can — have had aprofound impact on me and I boldly try to do all I can in helping people realize what God has given me the grace to grasp from the time I was a boy.
But it obviously means more than words. It means that I proclaim the Real Presence — and dare to do all I can — in the way I celebrate Mass, with a reverential ars celebrandi.
It means that I proclaim him daringly and generously through coming to spend a lot of time with him as he stays with us in the Tabernacle and Monstrance.
It means that I try to live the consequences of Holy Communion, in terms of the bonds made in the Mystical Body with my brothers and sisters.
It means that I try to imitate Christ’s self-giving, by giving my own body, blood, sweat, time, gifts, talents, in short, life and death, out of love for him and for those for whom he gave his life.
All of this is part of the sacred Eucharistic preaching. But first and foremost it means allowing the Holy Spirit to use me as an instrument to help people believe what the Church believes, and what I believe, about the gift and mystery of transubstantiation and the Real Presence.
What excites you the most about the National Eucharistic Revival?
The hope that God will abundantly bless our efforts and renew the Church in Eucharistic piety — and every good (in terms of vocations to holiness, priesthood, religious life, diaconate, marriage, consecrated virginity, etc.) that will flow from that renewal.
What is it that attracts or draws you to spend time with Jesus in the Eucharist?
The firm faith that He is there, waiting for me, loving me, wanting to abide in me and have me abide in Him, not just temporarily but permanently.
Please share a powerful experience you have had at Mass/related to the Eucharist: either before you were a priest or while celebrating the Mass yourself.
This is a tough question because, honestly, everyone of the nearly 11,000 Masses I’ve celebrated since my ordination has been incredible. God has granted a grace I begged for, never to celebrate Mass “routinely.” In my life I had had a chance to meet Popes John Paul II, Benedict and Francis many times, to meet presidents, Secretary-Generals and world leaders, sports stars, actors and actresses, and both canonized saints and so many saints-next-door. When young people ask me, “What was it like to talk to N.?,” I tell them the truth, but then I say,”But for the last 23 years, I’ve started every day holding the God-man in my hands, receiving him within me, and giving him to those for whom he gave his life. After that encounter with the King of Kings, everything else pales.”
St. John Vianney used to ask for miracles when he held Jesus in his hands after the consecration. I do the same with the intentions entrusted to me. And the Lord has been very generous, as he promised he would. And that just augments the Thanksgiving.
