Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Thirty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time, A, Vigil
November 4, 2023
To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below:
The following text guided the homily:
- This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege 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, when, with super strong language, he will make clear that we ultimately have only one Father, one Teacher and one Spiritual Guide — God himself. God is our Father, and any human fatherhood (physical for the dads listening, and spiritual for the priests) is derivative and vicarious of the Eternal Father’s paternity. Jesus is our one Teacher or Master and any other teaching must point to Him who is the Truth. The Holy Spirit is our one Spiritual Guide, or Rabbi, and any other guide must cooperate with the Holy Spirit to point the person along the straight path to true life and love. Intentionally using hyperbole, Jesus tells us to call no one on earth our father, or teacher, or rabbi, because he wants us first and foremost to be sons of the Father, students of Jesus the Teacher, and docile followers of the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Jesus himself refers to Abraham as father and tells us to honor our father and mother, and so he’s not saying that we can’t ever use the title father, or teacher, or rabbi, but rather he wants everyone to recognize that all authority, truth and guidance comes ultimately from God. So often human parents, instructors, or guides, rather than leading us to God, sometimes can seem to want to take God’s place. Jesus’ concern is not really one of vocabulary, but of mentality. As he says at the end of the passage, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” He wants us to become great through loving service rather than through arrogance. He wants us to know that no one can take God’s place as the giver of life, as our teacher and our guide — and to the extent that any parent, teacher, or guide is worthy of the name, they must first be a good child, student and follower of the one Father, Teacher and Guide.
- That said, Jesus also stresses, paradoxically, that God doesn’t work alone. Throughout salvation history, he has used many others as his instruments to bless us with the gifts of fatherhood, truth and direction. He illustrates this by what he says about the scribes and Pharisees. It’s not shocking that he tells us not to follow the Pharisees’ example, because, as he makes clear in this Sunday’s Gospel and many times elsewhere, they were hypocrites. What is surprising is that he nevertheless tells us to follow these hypocrites’ teaching. He says that they sit on “Moses’ seat.” We know that God raised up Moses to pass on to the chosen people God’s own words and direction, leading them from slavery into the promised land. The scribes were those people who made their entire living out of knowledge of the Law of the Covenant God gave through Moses. The Pharisees were the group of people who publicly dedicated themselves full-time to trying to live by that law. Jesus said that since they sit on Moses’ seat, “do whatever they teach you and follow it,” because it is not their words that one’s following, but God’s words through them. Their hypocrisy doesn’t invalidate God’s word. And we can’t use their failure to live it as a reason for us to ignore it or not live it either.
- At the same time, Jesus also gave a stern warning, which must have pained him to say: “But do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.” They were indeed hypocrites, the Greek word for actors, who were not acting on the words of God but just pretending to be faithful. They used their sitting on Moses’ seat to put burdens on others but had no love for those to whom they were preaching; they didn’t “lift a finger,” didn’t make the least effort, to help others understand how — as we discussed last week — every one of God’s commands is given out of love and meant to help us to learn how to love God and love others. Their knowledge of God’s word, rather than making them holier, rather than making them humbler, rather than making them more loving of others with whom they were attempting to share God’s word, it had made them proud. While God’s word was not annulled, their personal failure to live it invalidated the authority of their example.
- What does this mean for us today? If Jesus, who said that we have only one Father, Teacher and Guide, told us that God works vicariously to pass on to us his words and guidance though those sit on Moses’ seat, how much more would he say the same thing about those who sit not on Moses’ seat but on Christ’s own cathedra! The Pope is Christ’s own earthly vicar. Each bishop is a successor of the apostles. The priest is ordained by Christ through a bishop to be his collaborators. All of them, to varying degrees, sit on Christ’s own chair and are called to transmit not just the law of Moses, given by God to the Jewish people, but the law of Jesus Christ, given by God to the whole human race. So much did Jesus identify with them as his messengers that, before he sent them out to preach, he said, “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me” (Lk 10:16). So Jesus is clearly saying to everyone in the Church relative to the Pope, our bishops and our priests, “Insofar as they sit on my chair or stand in my pulpit, ‘do whatever they teach you and follow it,’ for it is not just they speaking, but I speaking through them.” The Gospel that our Holy Father or our bishop or even a simple parish priest proclaims is not to be accepted as merely a “human word,” but at it really is, God’s word. The same for parents passing on the faith. The same for catechists and other teachers of the faith. To the extent that they truthfully pass on God’s word, we must heed the message regardless of the qualities of the messenger.
- That’s the first powerful truth Jesus wants us to grasp this Sunday. But there’s another. Just as Jesus 2,000 years ago didn’t stop with a simple affirmation of the divine provenance of his preachers’ words, so today too Jesus, with great pain, likely would say about some of the clergy he has chosen and ordained, some of the parents he has blessed with children, and some of those to whom he has given the vocation to teach the faith as religious educators: “But do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.” There have certainly been popes, bishops, priests, parents, and catechists, who, like the scribes and Pharisees, have failed to live the word they preach to others. There are certainly those who burden others with the word, without showing them how it leads them to love God and others. There are those whose knowledge of the word has made them proud rather than holy. There are those who vainly seek for status, rather than humbly hunger to serve. While the example of hypocritical clergy obviously comes to mind as especially egregious, we can similarly deplore the un-Christian behavior of various prominent Catholic politicians, celebrities, judges, teachers, and parents.
- But there’s even a greater evil that spiritual fathers and mothers, teachers and guides can commit. Jesus didn’t even mention it in Sunday’s Gospel, because, despite their defects, the scribes and the Pharisees reverenced the word of God so much that they never would have succumbed to this evil. They may have misunderstood God’s word, but they would never have tried to change it, or ignore it, or lie about it. That’s what some prominent Catholics, clergy, theologians, or prominent Catholics in public life or the family have done. While sitting on Moses’ and Christ’s seat, rather than passing on his teaching, they substitute their own. I could cite hundreds of examples of these false instructions, but here are some of the most common ones: “Jesus didn’t really work miracles;” “Scripture really isn’t the word of God, but the word of men;” “The Eucharist is not really Jesus’ body and blood, but just a symbol;” “It’s no longer necessary to go to confession;” “Catholics no longer believe in Hell, because no God who loved us could possibly allow us to go to Hell;” “It’s not a mortal sin to miss Mass on Sunday;” “The Church has no good reason not to ordain women as priests;” “Everyone, including non-Catholics, no matter what the state of one’s soul or marital situation, can and should come to Holy Communion at Mass;” “There’s really no such thing any more as a mortal sin, especially in the realm of sexuality;” “The Church’s teachings on marriage are homophobic and immoral, discriminating against those of the same-sex who just want to love each other and have their loved sanctioned;” “You don’t have to follow the teachings of the Pope and the bishops; you just have to follow your conscience;” “It’s possible to be a good Catholic and be pro-choice, as long as you wouldn’t have an abortion yourself.” We could go on with these falsehoods — I’m sure you’ve heard others — but I hope that the point if clear. This type of preaching malpractice and theological abuse may be the worst and most harmful damage a priest or teacher or parent can cause. Of course, we need to pray for these false prophets, but we also need to be on-guard against such falsehoods from those in authority; the greatest defense we could have is to know our faith well, so that we would never be gullible to such deceptions masquerading as truths.
- What does the Lord want from all of us who are called to pass on the faith to others? It’s obvious that Jesus wants us to have integrity, to preach His words — all of them, including the more challenging messages — and to practice what he wants us to preach. In the rite of the ordination of deacons, there’s a beautiful moment when the candidate kneels before the bishop in front of the altar. The prelate takes the Book of the Gospel and places it in the candidates’ hands, saying, “Receive the Gospel of Christ whose herald you have become. Believe what you read. Teach what you believe. Practice what you teach.” Each of us, like the deacon, is called to become one with the word, to believe it, teach it and live it. The greatest way we proclaim the Gospel is by humbly putting it into practice. Our example is worth a thousand homilies or books or treatises.
- As we prepare for Sunday, we remember that each Mass is meant to help us live the lessons Jesus gives in the Gospel. We come to listen to the Word of God as words to be done. We’re called to believe what we read, teach what we believe and practice what we teach. And that integration takes its model from Jesus in the Eucharist, the Word made flesh, as he seeks to take up his teaching chair within our own body and soul as we go out faithfully to proclaim and live the truth. From within, he wants to help us become sons and daughters of the Father from whom all biological and spiritual parenthood derives; to become ever greater students of Jesus the Master; and ever more fired up and faithful followers of the Holy Spirit’s guidance. He wants to be able to say about us: observe and do all things whatsoever they tell you and follow their example.
The Gospel on which the homily was based was:
Gospel
MT 23:1-12
Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying,
“The scribes and the Pharisees
have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.
Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,
but do not follow their example.
For they preach but they do not practice.
They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry
and lay them on people’s shoulders,
but they will not lift a finger to move them.
All their works are performed to be seen.
They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.
They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues,
greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’
As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’
You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers.
Call no one on earth your father;
you have but one Father in heaven.
Do not be called ‘Master’;
you have but one master, the Christ.
The greatest among you must be your servant.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled;
but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
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