Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

In his new book, Pope Benedict engages in a fascinating dialogue with the American rabbi Jacob Neusner on the identity and meaning of Jesus. In this sermon, I will tease out the implications of this debate, especially in regard to the vocation of Israel.

Authentic faith has nothing to do with credulity or intellectual naivte. It has everything to do with placing one's trust in the God whom we cannot, even in principle, know with clarity. It is the willingness to follow the promptings of God, even when we don't see where they might lead.

Both our first reading and Gospel function as a slap in the face, cold water, a wake-up call. They show how passing, ephemeral, and unreliable are the goods of this world. The idea is to set our hearts, as Paul says, on the higher things, rooting our lives in God.