Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Annual Retreat for the Priests of the Diocese of Charleston
Sand Dunes Resort, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Tuesday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of St. Charles Borromeo
November 4, 2025
Rom 12:5-16, Ps 131, Lk 14:15-24
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.4.25_Homily_1.mp3
The following outline guided the homily:
* Beautiful Gospel for Priests Seeking to Have the Mind and the Heart of Missionaries, the Mind and Heart of Christ.
* Parable about the Kingdom of Heaven in which we see his zeal.
* Invitation sent out to a banquet, to a “great dinner” to which he invited many.
* “Come, everything is now ready.” Don’t hesitate.
* “One by one, they all began to excuse themselves.”
* Work — ‘I have purchased a field and must go to examine it” or ‘I have purchased five yoke of oxen and am on my way to evaluate them; I ask you, consider me excused.’
* Other loves — ‘I have just married a woman, and therefore I cannot come.’
* Zeal for everyone
* ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.’
* “There’s still room.”
* “‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows and make people come in that my home may be filled.”
* Our task is to invite people to that great dinner. This clearly has a Eucharistic significance on earth but it also has heavenly significance. Blessed are those who will dine in the kingdom.
* First, to respond fully to the invitation. To show up properly dressed in our baptismal garment that the royal tailor has given us. Then to help others show up. First, those who should be there. Catholics. But then the neglected. Then everyone.
* For this, we need a few qualities mentioned.
* We need unity — We, though many, are one Body in Christ and individually parts of one another
* We need to use our gifts and all of them — “Let us exercise them.” Prophecy, ministering, teaching, exhortation, generosity, diligent supervision, cheerful mercy.
* We need love above all — Everything in this third section of the Letter to the Romans beginning today can be summed up, I think, by his expression in the middle of today’s passage, “Let love be sincere.” He’s calling us exactly to what Jesus Christ called us to do in the Gospel, to love: to grow in the image and likeness of God, who is love; to love God with all our mind, heart, soul and strength, and our love our neighbor as ourselves; to love as he loves us. St. Paul helpful adds the adjective “sincere.” Sincerity means that it has to be both truthful and from the heart, cut off from all duplicity. We can examine the entire passage from the perspective of sincere love and look at the way we live. St. Paul gives us a Litany of what made him the greatest missionary of all time. For us to have the mind and heart of missionaries, we must have these qualities.
* Hate what is evil — If we love God and love others, we hate all evil and sin that alienates, divides, and ultimately kills those bonds of love.
* Hold onto what is good — When we love God, we are grateful for what he has given and treasure it, and similarly when we love others, we focus fundamentally on how good they are.
* Love one another with mutual affection — Our love can’t be cold. It must be full of affection, full of warmth, full of emotion. We should behave in such a way that others would think we’re the president of their fan club, that we don’t just love them but like them, and admire them and rejoice in them.
