Archive for Talks by Mike
Resisting Temptation
We will always face temptations. Even Jesus was tempted. The question is: will we sin in face of temptation or resist temptation, flee from the devil, and be holy?
How do you See God?
God appeared to Moses as a burning bush… When I was younger, I believed in Santa Claus. All year long, he sits on a comfy Lazy-Boy chair watching an endless wall of video monitors noting every good and bad thing we do. My parents even used to tell me he had spy satellites to keep [...]
Can God create a burrito so hot he can’t eat it?
This is a Simpsons takeoff of an old philosophy questions “Can God make a rock so heavy that he can’t lift it.” And it is a great question- one which was considered by all the great philosophers from Aristotle to St. Thomas Aquinas. The question seems to rattle our belief in an omnipotent Creator- that [...]
Love & Marriage
(Originally posted at http://www.htyouth.ws/?p=166, this is Mike’s talk from the high school LIFE night at Holy Trinity Parish on February 15, 2009.) Last week, we had in-depth look at God’s saving grace… how God ALWAYS offers us His grace to help to do what He asks us to do. We started with that because over [...]
Endurance in Hard Times
The Following is the talk given by Mike Landry at XLT on Thursday, November 13th, 2008, at St. Theresa’s Parish in Millwoods: Finally, brothers, pray for us, so that the word of the Lord may speed forward and be glorified, as it did among you, and that we may be delivered from perverse and wicked [...]
Dealing with Death
I spent the afternoon today in two different high school religion classes talking about good & evil, and then answering questions from the students in the classes. One question has remained with me all day: How do you get over the loss of someone you care about? It’s a tough question. When you’re in high [...]
Overview of the Mass
The Church has received the Eucharist from Christ the Lord not as one gift –however precious- among so many others, but as the gift par excellence, for it is the gift of Himself, of His person in His sacred humanity, as well as the gift of His saving work. (Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia de [...]
10 Things About God, Sex, and the Church
While this is by no means an exhaustive treatment of the Church’s teachings on Sexuality, these 10 things are helpful to understanding just how beautiful and sacred sex really is… for a more in-depth look at this, you might want to pick up a copy of Good News about Sex and Marriage by Christopher West, [...]
Grace
When most of us think of grace, we think of the prayer we say before we have meals: Bless us, oh Lord, and these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord, Amen. But is there anything amazing about that prayer? Many of you probably just rattled that [...]