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Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

Bishop Robert Barron

A weekly homily podcast from Bishop Robert Barron, produced by Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.

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#497Yesterday · 15 min
How Not to Read the Story of the Syrophoenician Woman
Friends, for this Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, we hear the story of the Syrophoenician woman. Jesus famously puts off this woman—first by ignoring her, then by dismissing her, and finally by insulting her—and she offers one of the most famous comebacks in literary history. A common reading of this story is that Jesus is cranky from a tough day of ministry, and a plucky woman from Syrophoenicia straightens him out. But this turns Jesus into a sinner—and the whole structure of Christianity falls apart. The Church Fathers had a much better, more convincing, and spiritually more helpful interpretation.
#496Thursday · 14 min
A Tiny Whispering Voice
Friends, in my evangelical work online, I often encounter people who are skeptical of religion and dismissive of its claims. I usually ask them: How do we explain the intelligibility of the world or our ability to understand it? How about objective values and our ability to recognize them? Our first reading from 1 Kings reflects, I think, a great breakthrough in Western consciousness about how we’re able to identify right and wrong—just as we’re able to identify patterns in the physical world.
#495July 29 · 15 min
The Heart of Christianity
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!
#494July 23 · 15 min
What Life Is All About
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!
#493July 15 · 15 min
All Things Work Together for Good
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.
#492July 8 · 14 min
Let the Word of God Take Root in You
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.
#491July 1 · 14 min
Your King Shall Come to You
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.
#490June 23 · 15 min
Be Attached to God Alone
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.
#489June 18 · 15 min
Fear No One
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.
#488June 10 · 15 min
Jesus Sees Something in You
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.
#487June 3 · 14 min
From the Exodus to the Eucharist
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.
#486May 27 · 15 min
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
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.
#485May 20 · 15 min
Tongues of Fire
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.
#484May 13 · 15 min
What Is the Spirit Calling You to Do?
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.
#483May 7 · 14 min
Five Signs of the Holy Spirit
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.
#482April 28 · 14 min
The Dwelling Place of God
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.
#481April 22 · 14 min
Cut to the Heart
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?”
#480April 14 · 14 min
The Pattern and Presence of Jesus
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.
#479April 8 · 14 min
Both His Wounds and His Peace
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.
#478March 30 · 15 min
The Earthquake of the Resurrection
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.

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