NEWTOWN, PA, May 30, 2024 — During a holy hour featuring the Liturgy of the Word from the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, celebrated that day in many Catholic countries in the world and on Sunday in the United States, Father Roger Landry, chaplain to the Seton Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, gave a homily based on the Gospel for the Solemnity as well as the life of the patron of the parish, St. Andrew the Apostle.
Father Landry underlined that St. Mark's version of Jesus' institution of the Eucharist underlines two points that should help us relate to the Eucharistic Jesus.
The first is preparation. The Gospel shows how meticulously Jesus prepared for the Last Supper, sending two of his disciples — perhaps St. Andrew — to find a room prepared and ready. Father Landry said that this was just the very end of a period of preparation that stretched all the way back to the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden.
The second is what Jesus did himself in changing bread and wine into himself, in fulfillment of the words he had said a year before in his Bread of Life discourse in the Capernaum synagogue. St. Andrew was present when Jesus said those stunning and transformative words.
Father Landry then pivoted to describing how beyond preparation and faith we can all learn from St. Andrew how to approach Jesus. He mentioned that three times in the Gospel, after he had met Jesus and found him to be the Messiah, brought others to Jesus: first his brother Simon, who became the rock on whom Jesus would build his Church; then the boy with five loaves and two fish, whose raw materials would be used by Jesus for the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish; and the Greeks who were wanting to see Jesus, which precipitated Jesus' long-awaited hour.
Father Landry said that we can all learn from St. Andrew, after we have come to see where Jesus dwells, after we have discovered his identity as Messiah and Son of God, how to bring others to him. He focused on the four pillars of the parish phase of the Eucharistic Revival and how we can bring people to encounter Jesus at Mass, in prayerful adoration, in charity, and in the mission of passing on the faith.
To listen to Father Landry's homily, please click here.
To watch Father Landry's homily from the parish livestream, please click here.
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