Source: Bishop Robert Barron via YouTube.com Friends, we come to the end of the liturgical year with the Feast of Christ the King, where we meditate upon the kingly reign or rule of Christ. Now, we in the modern liberal West have a hard time with kings; we like democratic […]
Friends, our Gospel for today is the evocative scene of Jesus healing a man who cannot hear and cannot speak. This man is beautifully symbolic of many in our culture today: we don’t listen to God, and therefore we can’t speak clearly about God. To us, as to him, Jesus […]
Friends, as Americans, we have a very ambiguous relationship to law. On the one hand, we are a nation of independently minded people; we don’t like the law imposing itself on us. At the same time—let’s face it—we are a hyper-litigious society. We see the same ambiguity about law—both its […]
Friends, we continue reading from the sixth chapter of John, this pivotal section of the New Testament where John lays out his Eucharistic theology. And we come today to the rhetorical high point of this discourse, where things really come to a head. It is the ground of the doctrine […]
Friends, we’re continuing our reading of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, which is all about the Eucharist. And here’s my take on our reading for today: A long trip by car or plane can be uncomfortable, even overwhelming. But we’re heading somewhere else; we’re on a journey. […]
Source: Bishop Robert Barron via YouTube.com. Friends, we come to the great Feast of Corpus Christi—the Body and Blood of Christ. This year, as the Church in the US is going through a lengthy Eucharistic Revival, it’s good for us once again to turn to this greatest of sacraments. What […]
Source: Bishop Robert Barron via YouTube. Friends, the Gospel on this Fourth Sunday of Lent includes one of the most famous verses in the Bible: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have […]
Source: Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons via YouTube. Friends, we come now to the holy season of Lent. The Gospel for this First Sunday of Lent is Mark’s laconic version of the temptation of Jesus in the desert. Mark does not give us the details we find in Matthew and Luke, […]
Source: Bishop Robert Barron via youtube.com Friends, at the heart of what St. Ignatius of Loyola teaches in the “Spiritual Exercises” is the idea of detachment. If we are to do the will of God, then we have to become detached from the worldly goods to which we are addicted. […]
Source: Bishop Robert Barron via YouTube. Friends, this Feast of Christ the King encapsulates what the Christian life is all about. All the other celebrations of the year are leading us to this conclusion, and on this last Sunday of the liturgical year, we are asked the question: Is Christ […]
Friends, the book of Job is one of the most profound and most challenging books in the entire Bible. In today’s reading, we see that God does not hand-wave away Job’s suffering. Rather, the Lord places profound hurt and heartache in an infinitely greater context—into his loving providence. We must not narrow our focus on our pain; we must rather open ourselves to ever greater trust.
Friends, in our Gospel today, Christ paints a picture of a growing mustard tree, under whose shade all people are invited to dwell. Jesus speaks here, using a parable, about the reign and rule of God. Even now, the kingdom of God—the kingdom that finally matters and endures—is spreading far and wide across the whole world.