Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

The Voice of Conscience

08 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we commence now with the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, and our first reading is one of my favorites in the Old Testament: the account, in t...

The King of All the World

02 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we come to the wonderful Feast of the Epiphany and the great account in the Gospel of Matthew of the journey of the three magi. This marvelou...

Go to Joseph

27 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we come to the wonderful Feast of the Holy Family. Over the years on this feast day, I’ve certainly preached on the dynamics of the Holy Fa...

He Will Rule Forever

19 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we come to the fourth and final Sunday of Advent, falling this year on the very day before Christmas. And today, the Church invites us in our...

The Voice of One Crying Out in the Desert

12 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, for this Third Sunday of Advent, the Church asks us to focus on John the Baptist, who of course is one of the great Advent figures. It’s as...

Confronting the Powers That Be

05 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, great writers, from Aristotle to Shakespeare to Melville, put a lot into their opening line, which often sets the tone for the whole work. Th...

You Can’t Save Yourself

01 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we come to the First Sunday of Advent—the liturgical new year. I've said this before, but Advent is a time to get back to basics. Can I sug...

Classic Sunday Sermons: The One True King

21 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, Christ is the King of all things. His rule is characterized not by totalitarianism or despotism, but rather by loving kindness and sacri...

Classic Sunday Sermons: The Enemy of Melancholy

14 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we must develop a theology and spirituality of work. Meaningful labor awakens our desire to collaborate in God’s creativity. Viewing work i...

Classic Sunday Sermons: You Must Rethink Your Spiritual Life

07 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, there’s a great temptation for us to turn the Lord into a distant spiritual entity or a difficult moral taskmaster. We incorrectly believe ...

Classic Sunday Sermons: Your Life is Not About You

31 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, there’s only one real sadness in life—not to be a saint. But what does it mean to follow this path of righteousness? To follow the will o...

Classic Sunday Sermons: God’s Rules for Life

24 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, the Books of Moses teach that the three types of Israelite law—liturgical law, ritual law, and moral law—shape and direct God’s people ...

Classic Sunday Sermons: Does It Matter What You Believe?

18 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, a great theme of the Bible is that of God’s chosen people. At the same time, we also see that God’s salvific plan has to do with all...

Classic Sunday Sermons: The Summit of the Christian Life

10 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, the mountain is a great image throughout the Bible. It is the place where we go up and where God comes down to meet us. Today’s first readi...

Classic Sunday Sermons: The Key to Human Flourishing

03 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, in biblical imagery, the vineyard symbolizes the people of God. The Lord nourishes us as our caretaker, but he desires (even demands) that we...

Classic Sunday Sermon: Becoming a Brick Wall of Integrity

26 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, our own wickedness and virtue belong to oneself. Though our communities and background stories affect our mind and will, nevertheless, the in...

How Not to Think About Heaven

19 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, the parable at the heart of our Gospel today from Matthew 20 is one of those passages in the New Testament that really bothers people. It pro...

Enter the Adventure

12 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, today in our second reading, St. Paul says, “None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lor...

Are We Saved by Faith Alone?

05 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, they say that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Well, today I’m going to rush in to some stormy waters by looking at the central is...

A Fire in the Heart

29 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, our first reading for this weekend is from the twentieth chapter of Jeremiah. There is so much spiritual wisdom in Jeremiah, but more than an...

When God’s Ways Are Confusing

22 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, I do a lot of debating and dialoguing with agnostics and atheists, and very often, when they attack the faith, it's along the lines of: How c...

Chosen for the Sake of the World

15 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, our Gospel today from Matthew 15, the famous story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman, is one of those Gospels that bothers and unnerves p...

In the Storm? Look to Christ

08 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, our Gospel for today is Matthew’s account of the calming of the storm and the walking on the water. This is an event that reached very deep...

The True King Has Come

01 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, it’s a wonderful grace that the Feast of the Transfiguration this year falls on Sunday. The first reading the Church gives us from the seve...

A Wise and Discerning Heart

25 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, our first reading is from the First Book of Kings, and it's one of my favorite passages in the entire Old Testament. If you're going on a ret...

The Parasite of Evil

20 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we are reading during these weeks of summer from the thirteenth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, which contains many of the great parables of J...

God Has Spoken; Are You Listening?

11 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, our first reading and our Gospel today are about the word of God, both from God’s side as he speaks, and then from our side as we receive. ...

Enter the Inner Life of God

07 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, the Gospel for this weekend from the eleventh chapter of Matthew contains a passage that has been called “Matthew’s most precious pearl.”...

You Can’t Be Neutral About Jesus

27 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, there is no religious figure anywhere in the religions or philosophies of the world who is stranger, more demanding, more relentless, and mor...

Be Not Afraid

20 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, the readings for today are really magnificent, and they are all about something central to the spiritual life—namely, fear. Years ago, I wa...

Shepherds, Warriors, Healers

13 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, as we resume Ordinary Time, I want to talk to you about vocations—specifically, vocations to the priesthood. Our Gospel for today from...

Food for the Hungry Heart

06 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we come now to the marvelous Feast of Corpus Christi, of the Body and Blood of Christ. What has been on my mind a lot recently is the famous ...

To the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit

30 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, today we come to Trinity Sunday, which has been called “the preacher’s nightmare.” But as you probably know from previous sermons of mi...

Surrender to the Spirit

23 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we come to the great Feast of Pentecost—the feast, par excellence, of the Holy Spirit. A critique of the Western Church is that we don’t ...

Why Did Jesus Ascend to Heaven?

16 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, right at the end of the Easter season and in anticipation of Pentecost, we come to the great Feast of the Ascension of the Lord. We should do...

What Are the Signs of the Holy Spirit?

09 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, on this Sixth Sunday of Easter, the Church gives us a kind of foretaste of Pentecost. In all three readings, we hear descriptions of the work...

Be a Holy Priesthood

02 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, there is an enormously important line in our first reading today that we might just pass over: “The number of the disciples in Jerusalem in...

How to Proclaim the Faith

25 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, for this fourth Sunday of Easter, we have a magnificent first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. It’s one of Peter's great kerygmatic s...

When You’re Walking the Wrong Way

18 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we come to this Third Sunday of Easter, and our Gospel is Luke’s account of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. This masterpiece is a summ...

Agents of Divine Mercy

11 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we continue our celebration of the Easter season on this Second Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday. Mercy, St. Thomas Aquinas says, is com...

Let Christianity Be Weird!

04 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, Happy Easter! Christ is risen—Alleluia, Alleluia! Recently, I had a public conversation with the popular historian Tom Holland. Someone fro...

All the Way Down

28 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, on Palm Sunday, the culminating point of Lent, the Church reads from one of the great Passion narratives from the synoptic Gospels. But I wan...

Is Death the End?

21 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, on this Fifth Sunday of Lent, our Gospel is John’s story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Let’s face it: we are all haunted by dea...

I Was Blind and Now I See

14 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, on this fourth Sunday of Lent, our Gospel is one of the most magnificent stories in the Gospel of John: the healing of the man born blind. Jo...

The Thirsty Soul

07 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, on this Third Sunday of Lent, we are again getting back to spiritual basics, and the first reading from Exodus and the Gospel from John both ...

A Friend of the Lord Jesus

01 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The readings for the Second Sunday of Lent brought to mind my good friend Bishop David O’Connell, who was killed last month. He was one of the most ...

Time to Get Back to Basics

21 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we come now to the holy season of Lent, our preparation for Easter. I've often said that Lent is a time to get back to basics. It’s like wh...

Love as God Loves

14 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we continue our reading of the marvelous Sermon on the Mount. We cannot read this sermon as one ethical teaching among many. Everyone from Pl...

Be a Saint!

08 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we have the privilege of continuing to read from the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus himself lays out his basic teaching. What we find today...

You Are the Salt of the Earth

31 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we are reading from the marvelous Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. This week, we hear Jesus compare his disciples to three thing...

The Key to Happiness

25 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, our Gospel for this Sunday is one of the great passages of the New Testament—namely, the Beatitudes from the fifth chapter of Matthew. "Bea...

Join Your Life to the Light

17 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, this liturgical year, we are reading from the Gospel of Matthew, and Matthew is written precisely for a Jewish audience. This is why, over an...

Behold, the Lamb of God!

10 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we return this Sunday to Ordinary Time, and the Church gives us a rather extraordinary reading from the first chapter of the Gospel of John. ...

Be Attentive to Epiphanies

04 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we come today to the Feast of the Epiphany. The word “epiphany” comes from the Greek meaning “intense appearance.” It is something th...

Go in Haste, Be Astonished, Treasure!

27 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, on this Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, we hear three significant words in the Gospel from Luke: haste, astonished, ...

God Became a Baby

20 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Merry Christmas friends! As you gather today with family and friends, it is likely that someone, at some point, will bring in a newborn. And everybody...

The Promise of Emmanuel

13 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, many mythologies and philosophies in the ancient world held that time is cyclical; it just goes round and round. Many people today, on the ot...

Wait for the Desert to Bloom

06 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, today we come to the third Sunday of Advent, and the great image from Isaiah is that of the blooming desert. Many of us pass through desert t...

Go Meet John the Baptist

29 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, on the second Sunday of Advent, the Church invites us to go meet the great Advent figure of John the Baptist. All the details of our Gospel—...

An Advent Challenge

22 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, Happy New Year's Day! We come today to the beginning of a liturgical year—the first Sunday of Advent. There is a sort of a permanent Advent...

King of All, Warrior of Mercy

15 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we come to the great feast of Christ the King, which is always the last Sunday of the liturgical year. Think of the king coming at the end of...

The Shaking of Three Worlds

08 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, as we come toward the end of the liturgical year, we begin to look at the apocalyptic writings in the Bible. What’s indeed revealed is the ...

The Reality of Life After Death

01 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, our first reading and our Gospel for this weekend have a special resonance for our time because they both speak clearly about life after deat...

You Have Been Loved Into Being

25 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, our first reading from the book of Wisdom makes an extraordinarily important observation that’s of both theological and philosophical signi...

Finish the Race

18 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, our second reading this week is from Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy—one of the last letters we have from St. Paul. Now toward the end of...

The Spiritual Life Is a Battle

11 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, our first reading for this Sunday is about a battle between Israel and the Amalekites. To many of us today, this appears to be either an irre...

Where You Stumble, Dig for Treasure

04 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, our first reading for this Sunday is a section of the marvelous story of Naaman the Syrian from the Second Book of Kings. The spiritual lesso...

Stand Strong in the Spirit

27 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, this week, our second reading is from Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy. From prison, Paul writes to Timothy—the master to the disciple, th...

How Are You Caring for the Poor?

20 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, Pope Benedict XVI memorably said that the Church does three essential things: it evangelizes, it worships God, and it cares for the poor. Thi...

Don’t Demonize—or Divinize—the Powerful

13 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, the first and second readings this Sunday beautifully show both sides of Catholic social teaching: the balance between recognizing political,...

God Is Crazy in Love with You

06 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, in this Sunday’s Gospel, we encounter the infinite, extravagant, radical love of the Creator for his creation. Jesus paints for us, in thre...

The Fair-Weather Fans of Jesus

30 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, there are a lot of people today who might be intrigued by Jesus. They find him interesting, remember him as a spiritual teacher, or have warm...

Act Against Your Attachments

23 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, at the heart of what St. Ignatius of Loyola teaches in the “Spiritual Exercises” is the idea of detachment. If we are to do the will of G...

How Many Will Be Saved?

16 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, I am admittedly a bit reluctant to talk about the topic of our Gospel for today—namely, this famously controversial matter of how many will...

Let Christ Light a Fire in You

09 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, the readings for this weekend are tough. Here is the principle behind them, one that is simple to state, but difficult to take in: in a world...

Go on a Hero’s Journey

02 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, Joseph Campbell and, more recently, Jordan Peterson are very interested in the Jungian archetype of the hero's journey. We see it all over th...

You Can’t Take It With You

25 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, all three of our readings Sunday speak of a primordial spiritual truth—namely, the need to detach oneself from the goods of the world. This...

What Is the Lord’s Prayer About?

19 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, our Gospel for today is St. Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father. This prayer, which is probably recited millions of times...

Focus on the One Thing Necessary

12 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, the Gospel for this Sunday is the wonderful story of Martha and Mary. But the Church sets this up in a really interesting way by giving us a ...

Christ Can Heal Us

05 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, the Gospel for this Sunday is one of Jesus’ best-known parables: the story of the Good Samaritan. Karl Barth, who learned it from the Churc...

How Will You Evangelize Today?

29 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, as we continue now our reading of the Gospel of Luke, we have today a great portrait of the Church—what the Church looks like, what its cen...

Following Jesus Comes First

21 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, I’m going to be blunt with you: today’s Gospel is really challenging. It cuts right to the heart of the ethical implications of the Gospe...

Sacrifice, Covenant, Banquet

14 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we come this weekend to the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Body and the Blood of Christ. The Eucharist, as Vatican II famously said, is the sou...

What Is the Trinity?

08 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, Trinity Sunday has been called “the preacher’s nightmare.” But while the Trinity remains a supreme mystery, Thomas Aquinas used a basic...

Seek the Mark of the Spirit

31 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, Happy Pentecost Sunday! On this great celebration of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, meditating upon the number three will ...

Come, Lord Jesus!

25 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, on this Seventh Sunday of Easter, the Church gives us the privilege of hearing the very last words of the Bible. If you're reading poetry, a ...

The Heavenly City

17 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, in many ways, the second reading for this Sunday is the climax of the entire biblical revelation. We find a detailed description of the heave...

Rescued from the Depths

10 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, on this Fifth Sunday of Easter, we continue our reading of the book of Revelation, leaping ahead toward the very end of the Bible. Looking at...

The Great Army of the Martyrs

03 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, during this Easter season we're reading from the book of Revelation, that marvelous, final book of the Bible. In today's reading, John sees m...

Right Praise, Right Order

26 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, the last stanza of a poem, the last chapter of a novel, or the last lines of a play are of extraordinary significance, but only if you’ve r...

The Unveiling of a New World

19 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, Revelation comes from the Latin “Revalatio,” which in turn translates the Greek “Apokalypsis”—which means, literally, “unveiling....

Three Lessons of the Resurrection

12 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, a very blessed and happy Easter to you all! The Resurrection of Jesus is the be-all and the end-all of the Christian faith. If Jesus didn't r...

The Master Has Need of It

05 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, in the Palm Sunday Gospel reading proclaimed before the procession, the Lord instructs two of his disciples to go into the village and unteth...

Refuse Scapegoating Violence

30 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, this Sunday, we hear the story of the woman caught in adultery from the eighth chapter of John. René Girard thought that this story was ...

Everything He Has Is Yours

23 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, our Gospel reading for this Fourth Sunday of Lent is one of the greatest stories ever told: the parable of the prodigal son. In a way, this p...

Who is God?

16 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, on this Third Sunday of Lent, we have the privilege of reading one of the most important texts in the Bible: God addressing Moses from the bu...

Awaiting Resurrection

09 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, all three of our readings for the Second Sunday of Lent emphasize the transcendent world, the goal of all our religious striving. St. Paul sp...

Three Levels of Temptation

02 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, we come now to the great and holy season of Lent, a time to get back to spiritual basics. This First Sunday of Lent, we hear Luke’s account...

Beware of Blind Guides

22 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

There are a lot of people claiming to be spiritual gurus, teachers, and guides today. But is the person to whom you’ve entrusted your life spiritual...

Give As God Gives

16 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Friends, whenever we give or receive a gift, we're always caught in a difficult rhythm of exchange and mutual obligation. The great exception to this ...