Bishop Robert Barron
A weekly homily podcast from Bishop Robert Barron, produced by Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.
Friends, on this Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, I want to focus on the Second Reading from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans. The eighth chapter of Romans represents the culmination of an argument Paul’s been making, and the reading for today is the rhetorical high point of that conclusion. This is the first great theologian of the Church naming what is essential to Christianity—so we have to pay attention!
Friends, we come to the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, and we’re going to finish our reading of the thirteenth chapter of Matthew's Gospel, which deals with the parables. Jesus’s parables cut to the heart of the matter and convey the truth of the kingdom, and the two we hear today—the parable of the hidden treasure and the parable of the pearl—are really good examples. Both are about the summum bonum, the highest good, and therefore about what’s most fundamental in the spiritual life. Indeed, this is life itself; this is what it’s all about!
Friends, we continue this weekend reading from the thirteenth chapter of Matthew's Gospel, which is dedicated to the parables of Jesus. Today I want to focus on the thought-provoking and theologically rich parable of the wheat and the weeds. A man sows good seed on his field, and while he’s asleep, an enemy sows weeds among the wheat. But the man resists the impulse to pull them up, as it might uproot the wheat too: “Let them grow together until harvest.” This parable is getting at something very deep, and it has to do with the presence of evil in our world—and why God permits it.
Friends, on this Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, we continue our reading of the Gospel of Matthew. In chapter 13, Jesus gives a series of seven very memorable parables, the first four having to do with the growth of the kingdom of God. The first of these, which we’re reading from today, is the parable of the sower. What do we hear? That it’s never a question of God being reticent or holding back his grace. The problem comes from our side: We block the Word of God, setting up obstacles to it that prevent it from taking root. There’s the drama, if you want, of the spiritual life.
Friends, on this Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, our first reading is from the prophet Zechariah, who is a very important figure for the Lord Jesus. The prophet predicts the arrival of a king, meek and riding on a donkey—a king who will “proclaim peace to the nations” and extend his dominion “to the ends of the earth.” This strange text from the ancient world has been fulfilled in our hearing and in our sight.
Friends, we’re reading this week again from the tenth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, and Christ’s teaching here is—as always—astonishing: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,” Jesus says to his apostles, “and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” There are points of overlap with Jesus’s teachings in all the great religions of the world—but there’s nothing like this.
Friends, Jesus cannot be reduced to just one ethical teacher among many. But this doesn’t mean that his teaching isn’t important or astonishing—because it is! And I want to focus this week, and next, on our Gospel readings from the tenth chapter of Matthew. As Jesus sends his disciples on mission, he gives them, and us, a wonderful instruction in the spiritual life. What we hear, as I say, is astonishing—and if you allow it to sink in, it will change your life.
Friends, on this Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Gospel is about Jesus sending the Twelve on a mission. Whenever we hear about the Twelve, it’s the Church in seminal form. And here’s what I want to focus on: Whom does Jesus call to be his apostles? Not the best and brightest people of his time but fairly ordinary and even compromised characters. Yet Jesus sees something in every one of them—some gift, virtue, or capacity needed in the life of the Church.
Friends, we’ve come to the great Solemnity of Corpus Christi—a celebration of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. Our first reading mentions the “manna” that fed the Israelites in the desert—a mysterious bread from heaven described in the book of Exodus. This is then correlated to the Eucharist, the bread from heaven that Jesus gives us, in our Gospel from the sixth chapter of John. I want to explore four dimensions of this relationship between manna and the Eucharist.
Friends, we’ve come to Trinity Sunday, one of my favorite Sundays of the year. The Trinity is not just a little puzzle for theologians; it’s the heart of the matter, in many ways. Indeed, it’s central to the way we pray: Whenever we make the sign of the cross, we’re invoking the Trinity. It matters that we come to understand this doctrine more plainly, so that we might understand the meaning of our redemption.
Friends, we’ve come to the great Solemnity of Pentecost, which is, along with Christmas and Easter, one of the most important feasts of the Christian year. It is the celebration par excellence of the Holy Spirit. It is also the birthday of the Church—and we are meant to see ourselves in the readings for today.
Friends, today is the great Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, which is situated between Easter and Pentecost. The Ascension is when Jesus definitively moves into the higher dimension of heaven. And while we no longer have experiences like the disciples had of the risen Lord, we experience him through his Holy Spirit, who equips us to continue Christ’s work in the world.
Friends, we come to the Sixth Sunday of Easter, which means we’re coming to the end of the Easter season—and coming toward the Solemnity of Pentecost. After Christmas and Easter, this great feast of the Holy Spirit is the most important of the Church year. And in our three readings for today, we see five signs—in the Church broadly speaking and in your own life—that the Spirit is present and moving.
Friends, on this Fifth Sunday of Easter, there’s a somewhat hidden theme that runs like a golden thread through the readings, and that theme is the temple. To understand the New Testament texts, we have to see the importance of the Jerusalem temple for ancient Israelites. It was the focal point of Jewish life—the political, cultural, and of course religious center of the country. It was seen, in almost a literal sense, as the dwelling place of God on earth.
Friends, all during the Easter season, we read from the Acts of the Apostles, and this Sunday, we hear part of Peter’s oration on Pentecost morning. His bold proclamation is, in a way, the mother of all sermons; it is the essence of authentic Christian preaching. Peter, filled with the excitement of the Gospel, names the problem of sin, declares Jesus as Lord and Christ, and cuts his listeners to the heart. Then there comes naturally a question in response: “What are we to do?”
Friends, for this Third Sunday of Easter, we read once again the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus—a literary masterpiece, yes, but above all, a spiritual masterpiece. This story is not just about something that happened long ago; it's also about the Church now, and in all times. And it tells us who Jesus is and how to recognize him.
Friends, peace be with you—an echo of the words of the risen Jesus in our Gospel for the Second Sunday of Easter, also called Mercy Sunday. Christ gives his disciples the gift of shalom (peace). But there’s an exceptionally important juxtaposition here: He also shows them his wounds, a sign of humanity’s own sin and dysfunction. It’s not one or the other, his peace or his wounds; it’s both. To get this wrong is to get a lot of Christianity wrong.
Friends, Happy Easter! We’ve come to the high point of the Church’s liturgical year, the reason why we’re Christians at all. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, Christianity is a waste of time; the resurrection is the hinge point, the standing or falling point, of our faith. Taking Easter seriously is the source of our joy and our hope. Everything else is secondary to the great declaration of our Easter faith. In light of that, I want to talk to you today about earthquakes.
Friends, we come now to Palm Sunday, also called “Passion Sunday” because we read, in its entirety, one of the Passion narratives from the Synoptic Gospels. This year, we hear Matthew’s version, and one of the distinctive qualities of Matthew’s account is his stress on Judas—and more precisely, on the deep regret that Judas felt over his betrayal of the Lord. We’re challenged here to contemplate the radicality of God’s mercy and his relentless pursuit of even the worst of sinners.
Friends, this Lent, we’ve been journeying through some marvelous stories in John: the woman at the well two weeks ago, the man born blind last week, and now the climactic story of the raising of Lazarus. The great miracles of Jesus in John’s Gospel are referred to as “semeia” in Greek—“signs.” They’re indicators of God’s power and manner that teach us great truths about our spiritual lives. And the raising of Lazarus teaches us about the ways of God amid our suffering. Why do these things happen? Why doesn’t God act?