Living by Faith in the Love God Has for Us, Retreat Conference for Alumni of Manhattan College, September 26, 2025

Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Mount Alvernia Retreat Center, Wappinger Falls, New York
“Living by Faith in the Love God has for us”
Retreat Conference for Manhattan College Alumni
September 26, 2025

To listen to the conference, please click below: 

The following was the outline of the talk: 

• Introduction
  • Theme of the Retreat: “So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 Jn 4:16).
  • John’s whole approach to evangelization was to focus on the love of God.
  • Story of St. Jerome. “Little children love one another”
  • Not enough to know “of” the love God has for us. Have to know it personally. To experience it.
  • But we realize that it can seem too good to be true. That’s why we have to believe in it. We have to stake our life on it. Even if we don’t “feel” it, we have to live it.
  • We have a communion with God from the day of our Baptism, but we are able to experience communion with God ultimately through love, because God is love.
  • What Jesus said during the Last Supper:
    • Just as the Father loves me, so I love you. We have to recognize we’re loved and in fact lovable. If we don’t love ourselves it’s going to be hard for us to believe in the love God has for us.
    • Live on in my love. We can’t run away from it. We have to know and believe it.
    • You will live in my love if you keep my commandments, just like I have kept the Father’s commandments and live in his love. The commandments train us to love. This is the path for us to experience it.
    • Love one another as I have loved you.
      • Jesus doesn’t ask us to love him as he has loved us, but love one another as he has loved us.
      • Peter after the Resurrection. His love for Jesus would be shown in the way he fed and tended Jesus’ sheep and lambs.
      • John: if we say we love God but don’t love our neighbor, we are a liar and the love of God is not in us.
    • Therese’s vocation, to be love in the heart of the Church. We all have a similar vocation. In order for us to love God with all our mind, heart, soul and strength and our neighbor as ourselves, we have to begin with the love of God. “In this is love,” St. John will say elsewhere, “not that we have loved God but that he has loved us and given himself as an expiation for our sins.”
  • Various ways God reveals his love for us. Know and believe in him loving us in these ways.
    • Baptism
      • See what love the Father has bestowed on us in letting us be called children of God.
      • Divine Filiation.
      • God the Father: “This is my son/daughter, in whom I am well pleased.”
      • Most important day of our life
      • Sin wiped away. Temple of God. Incorporated into the Church
      • The joy of a Chinese convert at Columbia. Weiling Kong. Art. Baptism. She knew what it meant. She knew it could mean suffering. But she came and you couldn’t wipe the smile off her face for years.
      • Another convert, a law school student. Claire Addinquy. Secular France. Faith of her grandmother. Finally she could act on it. Extraordinary joy worth selling everything to obtain.
      • A third, Marin Minamaya. Several Guinness world records. Knew the consequences and how to change and made immediate changes. Asked if she might sing at her baptism. O Lord, I am not worthy.
      • Each felt the love of the call of God to be his daughter. They believed in it. They chose.
      • In the early Church, the first Christians needed to wait until that value became so strong that they would be willing to suffer. Willing to be faithful under trial. Until they were committed to abide in God always even should they have to trust in his love enough to be a martyr.
      • Do we know and believe in this love? Do we abide in it?
      • To believe in this love is to live our baptism. To reject Satan. To believe in God, the communion of saints and becoming a saint, to believe in the forgiveness of sins, resurrection of the body and life everlasting.
    • Eucharist
      • We call the Eucharist the “Sacrament of Love.” Jesus did in the apparition of the Sacred Heart.
      • If God the Father didn’t spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, would he not give us everything else besides? He gives us his Son every day.
      • Teresa of Calcutta. On the Cross, Jesus showed us how much he loved us. In the Eucharist, he shows us how much he loves us now.
      • Hence Jesus spoke about love during the first Mass.
      • This is the means by which we’re able to remain in him (John 6) and thereby remain in his love. Just as he lives because of the Father, so he wants us to live because of him.
      • Same Jesus. Looks different. Risen from the dead. Double-miracle.
      • Summit of salvation history.
      • Do we know and believe in this love? Do we live a Eucharistic life?
      • Story of Cam from the NEP.
      • My own story when the truth of the Real Presence hit.
        • 37 years ago, earlier this week. on Sept 23, 1988. Freshman
        • 13,516 days ago.
    • Sacrament of Confession
      • Forgiveness is an extraordinary gift of love. Requires a lot to forgive and reconcile.
      • Yet God forgives 70 x 7 times. While we were still sinners he sent his Son to die for our sins.
      • Even though our sins are like scarlet, he wants to make them as white as snow.
      • Divine Mercy devotion reveals the extraordinary depths of God’s mercy.
      • Lost sheep, lost coin, lost sons.
      • Heaven rejoices more for one repentant sinner.
      • One of the most extraordinary aspects of the priest is to participate as a minister of the Sacrament of God’s mercy. So many who believe in the love of God come to receive this gift.
      • Common experience of people who haven’t been to confession in decades. First question: “Welcome back.” How God wants to bring good even out of sins. How his mercy is greater than our misery. How there can be a fresh start, a reset button.
      • Likewise experiences in prisons, experiences on retreats for post abortive women, experience with people who struggle to forgive themselves because of some of the horrible betrayals of God and their loved ones. To be able to experience in that moment of intense self-hatred the love of God can be life changing for them.
      • Missionary of Mercy. Preach mercy. Corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Hearing confessions and making God’s mercy available. Experiencing the joy of the Lord.
      • Do we know and believe in the love of God that he shows us in this way?
      • Do we take advantage of this gift and make heaven rejoice?
      • Do we pay it forward? Do we forgive those who owe us 10,000 talents. Erika Kirk and Donald Trump. Forgive or refuse to forgive. Love or hate our enemies? Which is the path of Christ? Which is the path the evil one wants us to take?
      • My own experiences. General confessions. Retreat confessions. Gratitude for the priests who hear, like those at St. Anthony’s in Boston. Peter’s Basilica. Jetez ces pêchés dans la poubelle! Father Joseph Henchey. This will make you a better confessor.
      • Do we know and believe in the love of God shown in this way?
    • Word of God
      • Deuteronomy 4 — God’s love shown in his ordinances.
        • Therefore, I teach you the statutes and decrees as the LORD, my God, has commanded me, that you may observe them in the land you are entering to occupy. Observe them carefully, for thus will you give evidence of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations, who will hear of all these statutes and say, ‘This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.’ For what great nation is there that … has statutes and decrees that are as just as this whole law which I am setting before you today?”
      • He is loving us on every page. Entering into dialogue with us.
      • How do we respond to it? Do we hunger for every Word? Or do we take it for granted?
      • Jerome. Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. It’s a certain ignorance of the depth of God’s love for us over time.
      • If we were to receive letters from a loved one, wouldn’t we look forward to reading them? Do we do the same with God’s love letters?
      • Story of Fr. Bob from Cleveland.
      • Story from Bishop Anton Justs from Latvia about Father Viktors.
      • Bible in a Year Podcast. So helpful for us to get to know him.
      • Do we know of the love of God in God’s word? Do we believe in it?
      • What about those parts of the Sacred Scripture that challenge us to change? Do we believe that all parts of Scripture are part of the Gospel?
    • Sacrament of Marriage and Family
      • We’re all born in a family.
      • Most here have the vocation to be married.
      • In the first, most of us have had the love of God revealed to us by the love of our parents, siblings and many others. We’ve learned that we were lovable. It became possible to identify and believe in a little of the love of God by the ways our dads represented God’s hesed and our moms enfleshed God’s rahamim. I certainly did. My dad showed me the love like St. Joseph, sacrificing everything for us, his vacation for ours, working hard every day in a job he didn’t like. My mom showed great love, taught about God, taught to pray, taught with joy, pride and affection. Taught about commitment. I always sought to love God as totally as my mother and to love others as a priest, particularly those entrusted to me, with the love of my dad.
      • For those who have received the sacrament, we experience something of the love God has for us in the love of another to whom we want to commit the rest of our life. We experience the desire to love them and the way that that grows.
      • In the family, we always have some sufferings. Some come from God. Some are permitted because of the choices of others. But marriage and the family are meant to be, albeit imperfectly, schools of love.
      • I’ve seen this in so many of the marriages I’ve celebrated, the anniversary Masses I’ve celebrated and more. I’ll never forget what some of the Jubilarians have said to me. “Honey, you got your way the last time. I want you to get your way again!” “We make love all day long.”
      • The connection to the Eucharist. Baldachins. “This is my Body given for you.” Always a connection.
    • The Church
      • God is love and that love is interpersonal. Triune.
      • God has made us in his image, reflecting this interpersonal communion.
      • At a natural level, we have marriage and family, as well as the social nature of the human person.
      • At a supernatural level, the personal love of the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit, and he seeks to unite us in love.
      • The Church is meant to be a family.
      • Christ prayed for us to be one as God is one.
      • Christ loves the Church and laid down his life to make her holy by water and the word.
      • The Church is, therefore, a tremendous gift of the love of Christ. He doesn’t require us, or want us, to worship God alone. But to have the joy of worshipping him together with others. Together with Our Lady, St. Joseph, the great saints. Together with each other.
      • The first Christians got this and we see how they understood it. They prayed together, made pilgrimages together, ate together and had all things in common, selling their property and sharing the proceeds with whoever among them needed it. Because of that mutual love (and love for God in martyrdom) people were becoming Christians fast, despite the persecution.
      • Do we know and believe in this love that God has for us? Do we experience the love of Jesus’ bride — of the Church triumphant, suffering and on earth? Do we respond to the gift of friendship with the saints and God’s good ones here on earth?
      • Espirito Santo Parish. Church was there for them. They arrived with nothing but their faith. They cared for each other. They were there for each other in suffering and in joy. The parish really was their family.
      • People just out of jail in New Bedford. That people really cared for them. Many couldn’t believe it.
      • As a priest, we not only give and form, but receive and are formed. The love of the people formed me from the time I was a child. All those who passed on the faith and inspired me. Now form me still by their faith. As a missionary the welcome that I’ve received. The religious communities I’ve served and what they’ve done for birthdays, anniversaries or when I’ve really needed prayers. Those who pray for me every day.
    • Opportunities for Charity
      • God wants to help us learn how to grow in knowing and believing in his love through the experience of human love. We learn the love of God often through the love of parents, grandparents, Godparents, perhaps older siblings, aunts and uncles, priests, religious, parishioners and more. That’s important at the beginning.
      • But he wants that to grow. He gives us the opportunity to grow by paying it forward. He forms us to be Good Samaritans by putting people in need in our path. We meet people who need help.
      • John Vianney gave God thanks because he didn’t have to look for the poor, because they would often be at his Church doorstep.
      • In NYC, I don’t have to look forward, because the poor are on every block.
      • God loves us by giving us the opportunity to love. He incentivizes it by identifying with the poor, the hungry, thirsty, naked, stranger, ill, imprisoned or otherwise in need.
      • Do we know and believe in the love of God by taking advantage of these privileges? By being stretched and generous? By making the time for someone. By helping them out when they were desperate?
      • Story of Jan Valjean.
        • Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.
        • Jean Valjean’s interaction with the Bishop of Digne, Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel, called Bienvenue — “Monsignor Welcome” — in the novel.
        • Bienvenu is based on the real life Bishop of Digne, Bishop Bienvenue de Miollis (1753-1843). While a little-known priest, he had a chance encounter with Napoleon and praised him, as a result of which he was made a bishop. He continued to act like a common, compassionate, country priest, welcoming everyone. He moved into the smalltown hospital, so that the episcopal could be used as a hospital. He kept only a tenth of his salary for himself, spending the rest on alms. He once accompanied a condemned man to the scaffold, after the village priest refused to do so. Hugo’s narrator summarizes the bishop’s philosophy: “There are men who toil at extracting gold; he toiled at the extraction of pity. Universal misery was his mine. The sadness that reigned everywhere was but an excuse for unfailing kindness. Love each other; he declared this to be complete, desired nothing further, and that was the whole of his doctrine.”
        • One evening, as we see in the novel, Jean Valjean shows up at his door, asking a place to stay the night. Bienvenu graciously accepts him, feeds him, and gives him a bed. Valjean takes most of Bienvenu’s silver and runs off in the night. The police capture Valjean and take him back to face Bienvenu. When the police inform Bienvenu they have found the silver in Valjean’s knapsack, Bienvenu tells the police that he had given them to Valjean as a gift. He chastises Valjean for not taking the silver candlesticks as well. After the police leave, Bienvenu tells Valjean to use the silver to become an honest man:
        • “Forget not, never forget that you have promised me to use this silver to become an honest man…. Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!”
        • In the Musical, the point is made just as powerfully. “But remember this, my brother / See in this some higher plan / You must use this precious silver / To become an honest man / By the witness of the martyrs / By the Passion and the Blood / God has raised you out of darkness / I have bought your soul for God!”
        • It’s important for us to know that Victor Hugo was rabidly anticlerical. He had a great anger against the Church. He could have easily based the bishop on a heartless ecclesiacrat, or one who lived a double life, or in some other way negative or even ordinary. He chose a bishop from his own lifetime, one whom he himself regarded with a reputation for sanctity and charity, and he did so intentionally. His son, who likewise resented the Church, tried to get him to make the figure who brought Valjean to conversion a doctor or a teacher. But Hugo kept the bishop, because he wanted through showing his charity the standard to which his readers ought to hold their own bishops. He thought most would fall short and the lack of charity in the episcopate would be sufficient justification for people to recognize that the Gospel didn’t have the power to change us for the better if it wouldn’t change even the leaders of the Church.
        • I think it’s a challenge in every age for us to become, for the sake of the Lord’s name, Mr. Bienvenu, Mr. Caritas, Mr. Misericordia.
      • John Vianney: all we have is a divine depository placed in our hands. We have a chance to exercise God’s charity.
        • My present position distributes American charity. I’m able to see it. It’s incredible to help people in this way. To some degree we all have this.
      • Do we know and believe in God’s love in this way, entrusting us with the care for others, his own sons and daughters?
    • Conclusion
      • Tonight’s talk was “Living by Fatih in the Love God has for us”
      • It’s not enough to know it. It’s not enough to believe in the love that God has.
      • That’s faith, that knowledge, must lead to action. It must translate into life.
      • The seven ways I’ve highlighted are not the only ways that we could examine. I would hope over these days, through your private prayer, through the other talks, through your small group sharings, you will explore many other ways that God shows you his love, inciting you to come to know him and relate to him with love on the basis of the fiery love he shows you. But it’s always a thing of action. Faith leads to life. And the Church needs those who manifest that they realize they are loved, a love from which we cannot be separated, a love that conquers even death.

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