Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

Whoever Is Not Against Us Is For Us

Friends, the first reading and Gospel this Sunday have to do with the Church at war with itself. The devil is the scatterer, the divider, and one of his favorite tricks is to take the Church—which is meant to be an instrument of the Gospel in the world—and to turn us against one another.

The Ladder Doesn’t Matter

Friends, why was the story of Jesus with the little children, versions of which appear in the three synoptic Gospels, so vividly remembered by the first Christians? I think they intuited that it got very close to the heart of Jesus’ teaching. The way Mark sets up his account of this story in our Gospel for this weekend is frankly funny, and it’s an example of the disciples completely missing the point of everything. 

Faith Without Works Is Dead

Friends, “fools rush in where angels fear to tread”—and this week, I am going to go once more into the issue of faith and works, which has been dividing Western Christianity since the Reformation. Our second reading from the Letter of James is a key text on this issue, and its metaphor of healing—together with Paul’s forensic metaphor—orient us to the Catholic view of justification.

Be Opened!

Friends, our Gospel for today is the evocative scene of Jesus healing a man who cannot hear and cannot speak. This man is beautifully symbolic of many in our culture today: we don’t listen to God, and therefore we can’t speak clearly about God. To us, as to him, Jesus says, “Ephphatha!”—be opened to the Word of God!

The Goodness—and Dangers—of the Law

Friends, as Americans, we have a very ambiguous relationship to law. On the one hand, we are a nation of independently minded people; we don’t like the law imposing itself on us. At the same time—let’s face it—we are a hyper-litigious society. We see the same ambiguity about law—both its beauty and its shadow side—in our three readings today.

Do You Accept This Teaching?

Friends, we come now to the close of this great discourse of Jesus in the sixth chapter of John, where we see the aftereffects of his teaching on the Real Presence. The Eucharist is a standing or falling point of Christianity, and the question Jesus poses to the Twelve is posed to every one of us today: Do you also want to leave over this teaching? Do you reject it, or do you accept it? 

Really, Truly, and Substantially Present

Friends, we continue reading from the sixth chapter of John, this pivotal section of the New Testament where John lays out his Eucharistic theology. And we come today to the rhetorical high point of this discourse, where things really come to a head. It is the ground of the doctrine of the Real Presence: Jesus is not simply symbolically present in the Eucharist; he’s really, truly, and substantially present under the signs of bread and wine.

Strength for the Journey

Friends, we’re continuing our reading of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, which is all about the Eucharist. And here’s my take on our reading for today: A long trip by car or plane can be uncomfortable, even overwhelming. But we’re heading somewhere else; we’re on a journey. And on a long journey, you have to find sustenance to keep going.

Everything in This World Passes Away

Friends, in the midst of our country’s great Eucharistic Revival, we continue our reading of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. And this week, I want to reflect on a line that names something so spiritually basic: “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life.”

Where Heaven and Earth Meet

Friends, this Sunday we begin five weeks of Gospel readings from the sixth chapter of John, which is all about the Eucharist. Jesus will get into a lengthy discourse about the Eucharist, but it commences narratively with the familiar story of the multiplication of the loaves, which is an iconic presentation of the Mass.