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: 

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. We need to ask how we can love each other with greater affection.
    
    
    • Anticipate one another in showing honor — When we honor someone, we revere them, we praise them, we thank them for going way beyond what is due, we lift them up. A Christian community, filled with love, should be like a happy marriage, in which spouses anticipate one another in loving, praising, and honoring.
    
    
    • Do not grow slack in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord — If we sincerely love the Lord, we will seek to grow each day in zeal, fervor and service.
    
    
    • Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer — Our sincere love for the Lord will show itself in our joy, hope, endurance and persevering prayer, just as hardship can’t stop a husband’s love for a wife or a mom’s for her children.
    
    
    • Contribute to the needs of the holy ones — Sincere love attends to the needs of others.
    
    
    • Exercise hospitality — Sincere love rejoices to welcome.
    
    
    • Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them — Sincere love for our enemies leads to blessing them rather than wishing them ill.
    
    
    • Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep — Sincere love means sharing others’ joys and sorrows.
    
    
    • Regard one another equally, do not be haughty but associate with the lowly — Sincere love for another makes us regard them at least as equals, if not superiors. We don’t condescend but descend in love to lift others up.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  


• St. Charles Borromeo is a living illustration of today’s Gospel.
  
  
  
  • He sought to reevangelize the Diocese of Milan to invite everyone to the feast.
  
  
  • He tried to bring the Church into unity at the Council of Trent and then in his Diocese.
  
  
  • He sought to exercise his gifts and invite others to do the same. Be who you promised to be.
  
  
  • He loved sincerely and challenged others to that standard.
    
    
    
    • He hated evil.
    
    
    • He treasured the good.
    
    
    • He loved with affection.
    
    
    • He honored those who responded to the Lord.
    
    
    • He never grew slack in zeal
    
    
    • He rejoiced in Christian hope, endured even during plagues, and persevered in prayer even amid assassination attempts. He shared peoples joys and sorrows.
    
    
    • He sold all his goods to contribute to the needs of others.
    
    
    • He opened up his residence to the poor.
    
    
    • He prayed for the conversion of those who were persecuting them and loved them enough to correct them.
    
    
    • He wasn’t haughty and associated with the lowly.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • “Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.” We are indeed blessed to be called to the Supper of the King, the Lamb of God himself. This is where he strengthens us to use all of our graces for his kingdom. This is the means by which he unites himself to us so that we can love as sincerely as he does. This is the place where we exercise our logike latreia, and present our bodies as a living, holy and acceptable sacrifice to him who says to us today, “This is my body, given for you.”
  
  
  
  

The readings for today’s Mass were: