Bishop Robert Barron’s Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

For this feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord, I reflect on the Mass as a sacrifice. Sacrificial language runs right through all of our readings for today, just as it runs through the whole of Israelite history. In Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, God's fidelity unto death finally meets a human obedience unto death--and in that meeting, the covenant is fully realized, and salvation is accomplished. The Mass is the re-presenting of that world-changing event.

On the feast of the Trinity, we reflect on the uniquely Christian definition of God: God is love. Love is not something that God does, or an attribute that God has; love is what God is. This means that God must be a play between lover, beloved, and love--between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

All the Jews in Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost heard the disciples preaching in their own languages. This miracle of the Spirit is the reversal of the Tower of Babel, when God scattered the nations and confused their languages. The Holy Spirit is the solution to the spiritual problem of the one and the many. In God alone can the many come together fruitfully as one.

This week I discuss two more themes that emerge in the Da Vinci Code: the Gnostic Gospels and anti-Catholicism. Much of the storyline of the Da Vinci Code flows from the controversial Gnostic tellings of the life of Jesus. These are, in fact, far less historically reliable than the canonical Gospels--not to mention less theologically sound. And the book as a whole should be classed in the genre of anti-Catholic screed. We shouldn't be hysterical about American anti-Catholicism, but we also shouldn't be naive about it. I promise that this is my last word about the Da Vinci Code! Next week we're back to the Scriptures.

I don't like departing from the Scriptures in these homilies, but the appearance of the movie based upon the wildly popular novel The Da Vinci Code warrants a response. The central claim of the book--that Jesus is not divine--stands directly opposed to the central and defining claim of the Church. The Da Vinci Code argues that the divinity of Jesus was a fourth-century invention. Nothing could be further from the truth. This week and next, I will address this question and some others that arise from the Da Vinci Code.

Jesus Christ is infintely more than a moral ideal, a saint whom we admire from afar. In accord with the image from the Gospel for today, he is the vine upon which we have been grafted like branches. This means that he is our life blood, the very energy of our existence. Therefore we should read our lives this way: Jesus Christ is living his life in us.

Luke paints a fascinating portrait of the risen Jesus in our Gospel for today. He stands in the midst of his disciples, gathering them as the new Israel; he shows them that he is densely, physically real, even going so far as to eat a piece of fish in their presence. Jesus is not a phantom or a dream or a disembodied ideal; he is a living person in whom we find peace.

Graves are usually places of peace, repose, and meditation. We sit by a gravesite or we stroll through a cemetery in order to reflect on lives well lived or on the mystery of death. But there is nothing peaceful or meditative about the grave of Jesus, and there never developed within the Christian tradition a cult of the tomb of the Lord. This is because this grave has been robbed--and by the most intriguing grave-robber of all: the living God.

The donkey upon which Jesus rides into Jerusalem is a wonderful image for discipleship. He is a simple, humble, unassuming creature--and he is pressed into service because the Master has need of him. We like to organize our lives according to our projects and plans, but the key is allowing ourselves to be used according to Christ's needs and purposes. The whole point is to become, like the humble Palm Sunday donkey, a Christopher, a Christ-bearer.

God sometimes expresses his anger at his people Israel. This is not an emotional snit into which God falls; rather, it is a way of expressing his passion to set things right. So God permits the destruction of the Temple and the carrying off of Israel into exile in order to purify and cleanse. When catastrophe befalls us, we should trust in the strange providence of God. God is always about the business of enhancing life.

For a Jew of Jesus' time, Moses and Elijah would symbolize the Law and the Prophets, the two major divisions of the Scriptures. Jesus' conversation with them during the Transfiguration symbolizes something that is emphasized throughout the New Testament, namely, that Jesus fulfills, brings to completion, both the Law and the prophets. He fulfills the promise implicit in the Old Testament.

Our readings for the first Sunday of Lent highlight the cosmic and universal nature of God's redemptive purpose. The covenant of Noah was made, not just with Noah and his family, but with "all living things." We see this universality on iconic display in the Gospel. Jesus goes into the desert and he is "waited on by angels and accompanied by wild beasts." Jesus' redemption affects all dimensions of creation, seen and unseen.

The new wine that Jesus speaks of is the Gospel itself, the Good News that God has joined our human condition. In order to take in such a message and to conform our lives to it, we must expand. If we remain in the narrow confines of the old self, we won't be able to handle the richness and fullness of the Gospel message. So change! Conform yourself to the love that Christ is. Become like new wineskins.

In the wonderful Gospel story for today, the paralytic gets to Jesus only because there are four friends willing to carry him to the Lord. Are there people around you--friends, co-workers, family-members--who are, for various reasons, paralyzed in regard to their relationship to Christ and the Church? And are you willing to carry them? That is the evangelical question that this Gospel poses.

In our second reading, St. Paul tells us to do everything--even such simple acts as eating and drinking--for the glory of God. We should make sure that the light shines, not on us, but on God. And here's the wonderful paradox: since God needs nothing, whatever we give to him comes back magnified to us. This is why the saints shine with a special radiance, a luminosity greater than anything they could have produced on their own.