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A weekly homily podcast from Bishop Robert Barron, produced by Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.
Episodes
Sunday Dec 09, 2001
Sunday Dec 09, 2001
John the Baptist is, along with Isaiah and the Virgin Mary, the great figure of Advent. We hear his voice in the desert, summoning us to repentance and readiness. When we have purified our minds and hearts, we are able to receive the one who will baptize us with the Holy Spirit, the fire of God's very life.
Sunday Nov 25, 2001
Sunday Nov 25, 2001
Christ is indeed King, but an odd one. For he reigns, not from a throne, but from a cross, and he is crowned, not with laurel leaves, but with a ring of thorns. What this feast teaches us is the meaning of true power. The power that creates the cosmos is not domination, but rather self-forgetting and self-sacrificing love.
Sunday Nov 18, 2001
Sunday Nov 18, 2001
Christians believe that the end of the world has occurred in the death and resurrection of Jesus. This means that the old world dominated by sin, suffering, and death has been undermined. Now we live in the "in-between-times," waiting for the definitive arrival of the new world which Jesus has inaugurated.
Sunday Nov 11, 2001
Sunday Nov 11, 2001
The Christian attitude toward the body lies beyond the extremes of hedonism (taking the body too seriously) and puritanism (taking it not seriously enough). Christians are "eschatologically detached" from their bodies here below, precisely because they expect transfigured bodies in the age to come. We can see this Biblical attitude on display in both the Old Testament and the Gospels.
Sunday Oct 28, 2001
Sunday Oct 28, 2001
Irish writer Iris Murdoch says that the rarest and best moments in life occur when the web of our egotism and self-absorption is broken through. This can happen through great art and great compassion. It can also happen through authentic prayer, modelled by the publican in Jesus' famous parable.
Sunday Oct 21, 2001
Sunday Oct 21, 2001
The Old Testament story of the battle between Israel and the Amalekites is a symbolic presentation of the church. In the struggle against evil, there are fighters, pray-ers, and those who support the pray-ers. The Church is an amalgam of interdependent and mutually supporting missions.
Sunday Oct 07, 2001
Sunday Oct 07, 2001
For Jesus, faith is power. When we have linked ourselves to the God who fashions and governs the cosmos, we allow enormous power to flow through us for the transformation of the world. To have faith is to live in the "great soul." It is to expand the horizons of our consciousness and activity infinitely.
Sunday Sep 30, 2001
Sunday Sep 30, 2001
A concern for social justice runs from beginning to end of the Bible, reaching its fullest expression in the prophets and in Jesus himself. It can also be discerned in the writings and sermons of the Fathers, in the speculation of the great scholastics, and in the social teaching of the modern Popes. At bottom, we are summoned to use the gifts that God has given us for the full flourishing of our brothers and sisters. The commongood must come first.
Sunday Sep 23, 2001
Sunday Sep 23, 2001
In a puzzling parable, Jesus praises a man who is a self-absorbed cheat. What the Lord notices in the man's dubious behavior are three things of spiritual importance: he knows that he is in crisis; he makes an honest self-assessment; and, most importantly, he acts.
Sunday Sep 16, 2001
Sunday Sep 16, 2001
The attacks of September 11th have left us stunned and speechless. Yet our tradition brings the word of God to bear on even the darkest events. There are four mysteries that emerge from the tragedy: The mystery of wickedness; the mystery of the impermanence of the world; the mystery of salvation; and the mystery of forgiveness.