Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

Our second reading contains one of the most precious texts in the Christian tradition, Paul's description of the mind of Christ. While the old Adam clung to godliness and hence fell, the new Adam let go of his divinity and hence reversed the momentum of the fall. What does it mean to be conformed to God? It means to embrace the path of self-emptying love. Which Adam do we choose? The Old or the New?

The Biblical manner of dealing with the problem of evil is neither to deny the fact of evil nor the fact of God's existence. Rather, it is to stress the transcendence and inscrutability of God's ways. What looks like pure evil or dumb suffering to us finds its place within the providential plan of a mysterious God.

We will understand the power of this feast only when we grasp how very strange it is to speak of the cross as a triumph. Paul's great hymn in his letter to the Phillipians helps us to grasp how the cross fits into the narrative of God's salvation.

The command to love compels us to engage in the difficult task of fraternal correction, but it enjoins us to do so carefully, always aware that it can slide easily enough into a game of ego-inflation. The Gospel gives us some very practical advice in this regard.