Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA Holy Family, Year C December 31, 2006 1 Sam 2:20-22,24-28; 1 John 3:1-2,21-24; Lk 2:41-52 1) We celebrate today the Feast of the Holy Family of Mary, Joseph and the child Jesus. We...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA Christmas 2006 Vigil: Is 62:1-5; Acts 13:16-17,22-25; Mt 1:18-25 Midnight: Is 9:1-6; Tit2:11-14; Lk 2:1-14 Dawn: Is 62:11-12; Tit3:4-7; Lk 2:15-20 Day: Is 52:7-10; Heb1:1-6; Jn1:1-18...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA 4th Sunday of Advent, C December 24, 2006 Mic 5:1-4; Heb 10:5-10; Lk 1:39-45 1) Each your, on the fourth Sunday of Advent, the Church has us focus on the Blessed Virgin Mary. The...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor December 22, 2006 The whole season of Advent is a lesson in preparation. As we listen to the prophets, we mark the centuries of advance work God did to get the people of Israel ready to expect, recognize and...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA 3rd Sunday of Advent, C December 17, 2006 Zeph 3:14-18; Philippians 4:4-7; Lk 3:10-18 1) “What then should we do?” This was the question that was asked by the crowd in today’s Gospel...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor December 15, 2006 During the 2004 presidential election cycle, there was much debate over whether Catholic politicians who publicly promote intrinsic evils like abortion should be denied Holy Communion. While...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA 2nd Sunday of Advent, C December 10, 2006 Bar 5:1-9; Phil 1:4-6,8-11; Lk 3:1-6 1) On the second Sunday of Advent each year, the Church leads us on pilgrimage to the Jordan River, so...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor December 8, 2006 In the history of the Church, no encyclical has been a greater sign of contradiction than Pope Paul VI’s 1968 Humanae Vitae, which taught that the use of contraception in marriage...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA 1st Sunday of Advent, C December 3, 2006 Jer 33:14-16; Ps 25; 1Thes 3:12-4:2; Lk 21:25-28,34-36 1) Happy New Year! I say it again: Happy New Year! Sometimes Catholics find it a little...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor December 1, 2006 Last month at their November meetings, the U.S. bishops approved three teaching documents concerning, respectively, the pastoral care of those with a homosexual orientation, the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA Christ the King, Year B November 26, 2006 Dn 7:13-14; Rev1:5-8; Jn 18:33-37 1) Today we celebrate the culmination of the Church’s whole liturgical year. During the past 51 weeks, we...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor November 24, 2006 There was much comment in both the secular and Catholic media about the items on the agenda for the U.S. Bishops’ Conference meeting last week in Baltimore. All noted a marked shift...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA 33rd Sunday of OT, Year B November 19, 2006 Dan 12:1-3; Heb 10:11-14, 18; Mk 13:24-32 1) It is very common for the passages from Sacred Scripture that we have at Mass to begin, “at...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor November 17, 2006 Playing politics is nothing new for politicians. We are all accustomed to how legislators, when they may not be able or want to defeat a bill on the open floor, seek to use the rules of the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA 32nd Sunday of OT, Year B November 12, 2006 1Kings 17:10-16; Heb 9:24-28; Mk 12:38-44 1) In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus told us clearly what the first and greatest commandment is, the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor November 10, 2006 The beginning of November is a time when Americans are accustomed to focus on elections and the various issues that drive them, the economy, the direction of the country, safety and...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B November 5, 2006 Deut 6:2-6; Heb 7:23-28; Mk 12:28-34 1) Building on what he revealed to the Israelites through Moses (first reading)...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor November 3, 2006 The talking point interrogatives have begun to reappear as we near the November 9th Constitutional Convention and our legislators prepare to vote on whether to give first approval to...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA 30th Sunday of OT, Year B October 29, 2006 Jer 31:7-9; Heb 5:1-6; Mk 10:46-52 1) “What do you want me to do for you?” Which one of us would not want the Lord to ask us the question he...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor October 27, 2006 In last week’s editorial on voting guides, the question was raised about the responsibilities of a faithful Catholic with respect to candidates who support the evil of abortion. Brief...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA 29th Sunday of OT, Year B October 22, 2006 Is 53:10-11; Heb 4:14-16; Mk 10:35-45 1) There is a huge contrast in today’s Gospel between two types of greatness and two types of ambition...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor October 20, 2006 It is an indisputably positive development that Catholics in general are rediscovering that faith and life go together and that our relationship with God and our desire to please him...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA 28th Sunday of OT, Year B October 15, 2006 Wis 7:7-11; Heb 4:12-13; Mk 10:17-30 1) As a young king of the Lord’s people, Solomon pleased the Lord very much. One night God appeared to...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor October 13, 2006 When Cardinal Sean O’Malley went to Rome a couple of weeks ago to take possession of his titular Church, the munificent 150-seat Santa Maria della Vittoria, little did he realize that...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church 27th Sunday of OT, Year B October 8, 2006 Gen 2:18-24; Heb 2:9-11; Mk10:2-16 1) At the beginning of time, God created the heavens and the earth, the sun and the moon, the oceans and the mountains, the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor October 6, 2006 When told that Pope Pius XII opposed his policies, Joseph Stalin derisively responded, “How many battalions does the Pope have?” To someone convinced that might makes right, that the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA 26th Sunday of OT, Year B October 1, 2006 Numbers 11:25-29; James 5:1-6; Mk 9:38-43,45,47-48 1) We encounter in today’s Gospel a big contrast and a big surprise. The contrast is...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor September 29, 2006 As he concluded his apostolic pilgrimage to Germany, Pope Benedict XVI gave one last gift to the crowds who had assembled at the Munich airport to wish him auf wiedersehen and those...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor September 22, 2006 In the midst of his very fruitful apostolic pilgrimage to his native Bavaria, Pope Benedict stopped at the University of Regensburg, where as a young professor he became famous for...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B September 17, 2006 Is 50:5-9; James 2:14-18; Mk 8:27-35 1) In today’s Gospel, Jesus asks us the same question he asked his first followers...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor September 15, 2006 The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, in their Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, wrote that “all citizens are to bear in mind that it is both their right...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA 23rd Sunday of OT, Year B September 10, 2006 Is 35:4-7; James 2:1-5; Mk 7:31-37 1) In today’s Gospel we glimpse the awe of those who witnessed Jesus’ miracles and works live. Jesus, in...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor September 8, 2006 The most fitting way to mark the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks is to act on the lessons that infamous day has taught us. The first lesson is that evil...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA 22nd Sunday of OT, Year B September 3, 2006 Deut 4:1-2,6-8; James 1:17-18; 21-22, 27; Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 1) Saint James challenges every one of us here in this Church today in the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor September 1, 2006 The August 24 decision of the Food and Drug Administration to allow women over 18 to have access to the Plan B morning after pills without a prescription has left Catholic and pro-life...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA 21st Sunday of OT, Year B August 27, 2006 Jos 24:1-2,15-18; Eph 5:21-32; Jn 6:60-69 1) Today’s readings could not be possibly more dramatic — or more relevant for us. They bring us...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor August 25, 2006 In the early days of the Church, there was great solidarity and mutual loving sacrifice. Christians looked upon themselves as they really were — brothers and sisters — and whenever any...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Saint Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA 20th Sunday in OT, Year B August 20, 2006 Prov9:1-6; Eph5:15-20; Jn 6:51-58 1) Two-thousand years ago the disciples frequently used to ask Jesus what heaven was like and Jesus would...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor August 18, 2006 August 16, 2005 was supposed to be Al Qaeda’s bloody sequel to September 11, 2001. Thanks be to God, and to the vigilance and hard work of anti-terrorist units in several countries...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA 19th Sunday of OT, Year B August 13, 2006 1Kings 19:4-8; Eph 4:30-5:2; Jn 6:41-51 1) Today we enter together into the third week of Jesus’ five-week course on the mystery of his body...
Fr. Roger J. Landry Editorial The Anchor August 11, 2006 Sometime those in the pro-life movement wish that they could go back in time and re-fight some of the key battles in the history of the culture war. They long to go back before the time...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA Transfiguration of the Lord, Year B August 6, 2006 Dn 7:9-10, 13-14; 2Pt 1:16-19; Mk 9:2-10 1) On the sixth of August each year, the Church, both east and west, celebrates with joy the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA 17th Sunday of OT, Year B July 23, 2006 2Kings4:42-44; Eph 4:1-6; Jn 6:1-15 1) We have been focusing all year on the Gospel of St. Mark. If we continued in this progression, we would...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA 16th Sunday of OT, Year B July 23, 2006 Jer 23:1-6; Eph 2:13-18; Mk 6:30-34 1) The Lord says through the prophet Jeremiah in today’s first reading that the Lord will not allow bad...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor July 21, 2006 There was justifiable outrage last week when Massachusetts legislators, by a vote of 100-91, pusillanimously adjourned the Constitutional Convention. The original vote on the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor July 21, 2006 On July 11th, Pope Benedict acceded to Joaquin Navarro-Valls’ “oft-expressed readiness” to retire from the position of the director of the Holy See Press Office and de facto...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA 15th Sunday of OT, Year B July 16, 2006 Am 7:12-15; Eph 1:3-14; Mk 6:7-13 1) Jesus’ love for us was so great that not only did he want to save us, but he wanted to involve us in our...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor July 14, 2006 As Pope Benedict was flying from Rome to Valencia for last weekend’s World Meeting of Families, reporters on the papal plane asked him for a preview of what he would say. They...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B July 9, 2006 Ezek 2:2-5; 2Cor 12:7-10; Mk 6:1-6 1) In today’s Gospel, there’s a scene that should bring those who truly love Jesus almost to...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor July 7, 2006 Acting on last week’s editorial on the Protection of Marriage Amendment, one subscriber emailed his state representative. In a succinct and straightforward manner, he stated:...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor June 30, 2006 On Tuesday, the citizens of our nation will focus yet again on the bravery and principles that led to the Declaration of Independence and the birth of our nation. Fifty-six...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B June 25, 2006 Job 38:1,8-11; 2Cor 5:14-17; Mk 4:35-41 1) Today’s Gospel about Jesus’ calming of the winds and the seas is much more than a...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor June 23, 2006 Many Catholics were startled last week when they learned, mainly through secular news outlets, that the U.S. Bishops had voted to change the prayers of the Mass. Provocative...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA Corpus Christi, Year B June 18, 2006 Exod 24:3-8; Heb 9:11-15; Mk 14:12-16, 22-26 1) Today we celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi. Our ancestors who built this beautiful parish...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor June 16, 2006 On June 7, 49 U.S. Senators voted in favor of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to protect marriage as a heterosexual institution. 48 Senators opposed it. The procedural...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA Trinity Sunday, Year B June 11, 2006 Deut 4:32-34,39-40; Rom 8:14-17; Mt 28:16-20 1) Last week we celebrated the feast of Pentecost, when the apostles and disciples were strengthened...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor June 9, 2006 Normally editorials are dedicated to commenting on some recent or upcoming news event. This week it is regrettably devoted to the lack of one. The first or second Saturday in...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA Pentecost Sunday June 4, 2006 Acts 2:1-11; 1Cor12:3-7,12-13; Rom 8:8-17; Jn 20:19-23; Jn 14:15-16,23-26 1) 53 days ago, the apostles were all gathered together in the Upper Room. Jesus...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor June 2, 2006 Last weekend Pope Benedict embarked on the first foreign pilgrimage of his own design. As he stated in his inaugural talk at Warsaw’s airport, he went to Poland in order to...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year B May 28, 2006 Acts 1:15-17,20-26; 1John4:11-16; Jn 17:11-19 1) We are now within the novena between the Lord’s Ascension and Pentecost Sunday. On...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor May 26, 2006 The sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy is simply one of the most painful things with which most in the Church have ever had to deal. Words are not adequate to...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA Ascension Thursday, Year B May 25, 2006 Acts 1:1-11; Eph 1:17-23; Mk 16:15-20 1) On the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, we celebrate in a special way three things: a) The...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B May 21, 2006 Acts 10:25-26,34-35,44-48; 1 Jn 4:7-10; Jn 15:9-17 1) Saint Jerome, one of the great fathers of the Church, tells us that while Saint John...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor May 19, 2006 Faithful Catholics have been asking how they should respond to today’s release of The Da Vinci Code movie. Should they heed calls from a senior Vatican archbishop to boycott...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor May 12, 2006 In recent weeks, there has been widespread speculation that the Church was about to revise her teaching on the immorality of condoms in order to prevent the transmission of HIV and...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year B May 7, 2006 Acts 4:8-12; 1John3:1-2; John10:11-18 1) In today’s Gospel, Christ tells us clearly who he is and how important we are to him. “I am the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor May 5, 2006 Jesus told us in St. Matthew’s Gospel that when he comes at the end of time to judge the living and the dead, he will separate us into two groups. On his right, he will place...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor April 28, 2006 Ten days ago, the largest and most famous Church in the world celebrated the 500th anniversary of the inauguration of its reconstruction. The original St. Peter’s Basilica in...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA Divine Mercy Sunday April 23, 2006 Acts 2:42-47; 1Pet1:3-9; Jn 20:1-9 1) We celebrated last week the most important event in the history of the world, the most crucial event in the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor April 21, 2006 In a March column in The Boston Globe, provocatively entitled “Should Liberals Leave the Catholic Church?,” Joan Vennochi candidly vented her frustration that Church...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor April 14, 2006 This afternoon, at the beginning of the recitation of the Passion according to St. John, Catholics will hear of the treachery of the most famous traitor of all time, Judas...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor April 7, 2006 As Catholics throughout the world convene on Sunday in Church to enter into the passion of the King of Kings, dressed in a scarlet cloak with a reed in his hands, others will...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor March 24, 2006 The eyes of the Church universal and much of our region are justly on Rome today, where Pope Benedict XVI will create fifteen new cardinals. In addition to the particular...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, Massachusetts Third Sunday of Lent, Year B March 19, 2006 Ex 20:1-17; 1Cor 1:22-25; Jn 2:13-25 1) In today’s Gospel, we encounter a Jesus with whom many of us, especially today, are...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor March 17, 2006 Two weeks ago, 55 Catholic Democrats in the House of Representatives released a “Statement of Principles,” describing what their collective goals are on Capitol Hill. They...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor March 10, 2006 There’s a dramatic scene in the Acts of the Apostles when the twelve, after having been miraculously freed from the public prison, are brought back before the Sanhedrin. There they...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor March 3, 2006 There was palpable joy and hometown pride throughout our diocese last week when Pope Benedict named Archbishop Sean O’Malley a cardinal. For a decade, we were blessed by his...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor February 24, 2006 One of the least commented upon sections of Pope Benedict’s first encyclical on God’s love deals with the Church and politics. In an era in which the Church in various...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor February 17, 2006 In his encyclical Deus Caritas Est, after describing who God is and who we are, Pope Benedict turns to what the Church is. The Church, he says, is “God family in the world...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B February 12, 2006 Lev 13:1-2,44-46; 1Cor10:31-11:1; Mk 1:40-45 1) In one short sentence at the end of today’s second reading, St. Paul gives us a...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor February 10, 2006 In his first encyclical, Pope Benedict XVI takes us to the “heart of the Christian faith” and presents us with a “summary of the Christian life.” He described who God is, who...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B February 4-5, 2006 Job 7:1-4,6-7; 1Cor 9:16-19,22-23; Mk 1:29-39 1) In today’s readings, we encounter a lot of suffering. In the first reading...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor February 3, 2006 Most of us, when we receive a letter, normally open and read it. When the letter is from a close family member, we generally consume it faster. And most of us do not seem...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B January 29, 2006 Deut 18:15-20; 1Cor 7:32-35; Mk 1:21-28 1) In today’s Gospel, we see that on the Sabbath day, Jesus entered the synagogue and...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor January 27, 2006 Pope Benedict has followed Pope John Paul II in insistently heralding the urgency of a new proclamation of the Gospel to our own age. The Church is fundamentally...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B January 22, 2006 Jonah 3:1-5,10; 1Cor 7:29-31; Mk 1:14-20 1) God raises up prophets for every age. He raised up Jonah to convert Ninevah. He...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor January 20, 2006 In a powerful January 9 address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, Pope Benedict XVI argued that the way to peace can only happen through a joint...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B January 15, 2006 1Sam 3:3-10,19; 1Cor 6:13-15,17-20; Jn 1:35-42 1) In today’s Gospel, we see the drama that happened in the life of Andrew of...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor January 13, 2006 As we prepare for the Week of Christian Unity that runs from January 18-25, Christians in our commonwealth are confronting an issue on which they are clearly united. It’s a...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford Epiphany 2006 January 8, 2006 Is 60:1-6; Eph3:2-3,5-6; Mt2:1-12 1) We have heard the story of the Epiphany — the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles represented by the wise men — so...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Landing Editorial The Anchor January 6, 2006 Five days before the celebration of the birth of Jesus, most Americans got a Christmas present and the American Civil Liberties Union a long overdue lump of coal. These...
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God January 1, 2006 Num 6:22-27; Gal4:4-7; Lk 2:16-21 1) In 1929, just 17 days short of his 9th birthday, the young Karol Wojtyla — the future Pope John...