Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

Abba Father, Bring us Jesus

23 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The Our Father, the Lord’s Prayer, is a request for Christ. As we examine this most famous prayer line by line, we see it's all about Jesus. That ...

Martha, Mary, and the Attitude of Discipleship

13 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Although the little story of Martha and Mary has been interpreted throughout the centuries as a parable dealing with the “active” and “contempla...

Hearing the Voice of God

06 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

During the twentieth century, moral relativism was in vogue in elite cultural circles, but now it is the dominant moral outlook of the broader culture...

Boasting in the Cross

30 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

St. Paul tells us in our second reading that he boasts in the cross of Jesus. To any of his hearers in the first century this would have sounded like...

Walking Truly and Completely with Him

22 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In the Gospel for this Sunday, Jesus clarifies that all worldly goods find their value in relation to Him.  If we believe Jesus is the only Son of Go...

Christ's Identity and Mission

19 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Today's Gospel presents Luke's version of the famous conversation that the Lord Jesus had with his disciples concerning his identity and mission. Auth...

The Wages of Sin

12 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In today's first reading from 2 Samuel we learn about God's dealings with David, the Israelite king who put himself on a path of sin that culminated i...

The Whole Gospel is About Resurrection

05 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In today's Gospel we learn about Jesus’ raising of the son of the widow of Nain. This is a prime exemplification of a key Gospel truth, namely, that...

Corpus Christi

29 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The Church comes from the Eucharist for it is the sacrifice that makes saints. The Eucharist is essentially the fullest act of gratitude prefigured in...

Begotten Not Made

22 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of The Most Holy Trinity. The Nicene Creed articulates the mystery of the Trinity with the wonderful phrase ...

The Holy Spirit and Mission

15 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Today we celebrate the great feast of Pentecost, one of the truly great moments in the life of the Church. The Holy Spirit comes to give many spiritua...

The Ascension of Jesus

08 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Too often we read the Ascension as the moment when Jesus “went away,” when he left us on our own and went off to heaven, where we hope some day to...

The Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church

01 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The Church Catholic is a living thing; an organism rather than an organization. Therefore, it is continually moving, changing, adapting, reacting, ans...

New Heavens, New Earth

24 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Throughout the Easter season, we’ve had the privilege of reading from the book of Revelation, the final book of the Bible, the place where the entir...

The Good Shepherd

17 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most enduring and endearing images of Jesus is that of the good shepherd who guides and lays down his life for his sheep. We cannot be indi...

A Relentlessly Public Religion

10 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The passage from the Acts of the Apostles, which is our first reading for this weekend, is surprisingly instructive for our time in the life of the Ch...

Peter, John, and Thomas

03 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Our wonderful readings for the second Sunday of Easter speak to us of three apostle, who were three pillars of the Church: Peter, John, and Thomas. Ea...

Three Easter Lessons

27 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the foundation of the entire Christian faith. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, we should all go home a...

The Master Has Need of You

20 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In our Gospel reading for the Palm Sunday procession, Jesus sends his disciples into Jerusalem to prepare for his triumphal entry. They are told to un...

Misery and Mercy

13 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In this week's Gospel, we hear the story of the woman caught in adultery, a tale that has beguiled Christians and non-Christians for two millennia. Th...

The Prodigal Son Returns

02 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Today we hear the greatest of Jesus' parable, indeed what many people call the greatest story ever told: the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Even after h...

Why the Burning Bush is Such Good News

28 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Our first reading for this Sunday presents us with one of the most famous and commented upon texts in the entire Bible, in which God appears in a burn...

The Glorified Body

21 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The readings for this second Sunday of Lent awaken a sense of wonder, of a world beyond ours, a mystical consciousness. In the first reading with Abra...

Three Questions from the Desert

14 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Lent is a time of paring down — a time spent in the desert, if you will — as exemplified by Jesus' 40 days of fasting in these arid, barren lands....

Duc In Altum!

07 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This week's reading from the Gospel of Luke shows us that our encounter with Christ is an invasion of grace and that we must be ready to welcome that ...

Wall and Bridges

24 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This week's reading from the book of Nehemiah provides a reflection on the importance of keeping firm our religious identity and finding strength in o...

Walls and Bridges

20 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This week’s reading from the book of Nehemiah provides a reflection on the importance of keeping firm our religious identity, and finding strength i...

The First of the Signs

17 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The communion of humanity and divinity in Christ's divine person can be likened to a marriage. Sin effects a kind of divorce between God and humanity,...

Vitae Spiritualis Ianua

10 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The first Sacrament one can receive in the Church, Baptism, defines our relationship with Christ. In it, we are reborn as part of his mystical body, a...

Hannah, Her Son, and the Holy Family

27 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Lots of people today will tell you what makes a family well-adjusted, functional, and peaceful. But in today's readings for the Feast of the Holy Fami...

Mary, David, and the Theo-Drama

20 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In today's readings we see the Theo-drama, the great story being told by God, confronting the ego-drama, which is the self-centered play we attempt to...

Baptism in the Holy Spirit

13 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Our Gospel for this third Sunday of Advent is of extraordinary importance, for it speaks to us of the transformation, the transfiguration of the self,...

God Has Really Arrived in History

06 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Christianity is not a mythic system. It is an historical religion that makes very concrete historical claims, and the first Christians were intensely ...

Advent and the Shaking of the Kingdoms

29 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Our Gospel for this first Sunday of Advent begins where the readings for the end of last liturgical year left off, namely, with apocalyptic musings. W...

What Does It Mean to Say that Christ Is King?

22 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The liturgical year ends with the feast of Christ the King. This day reminds us what the Christian thing is all about: that Jesus really is the king, ...

Daniel and the New Kingdom

15 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Our first reading for this weekend is from the utterly fascinating book of Daniel. Daniel is an example of apocalyptic literature, and apocalyptic boo...

A Tale of Two Widows

08 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s Scriptures highlight two widows and two very important biblical principles: God reveals himself precisely at that moment of our greatest vul...

Elijah, the Widow, and a Story of Trust

08 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, a section of which is our first reading for this weekend, is a narrative that just keeps generating sp...

What Does It Mean to be a Saint?

01 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

One problem with our great feast day today is that it can make sanctity seem like something that is the special preserve of a handful of spiritual her...

Master, I Want to See

25 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The story of the healing of blind Bartimaeus is a spiritual icon of enormous power. Bartimaeus is evocative of anyone who, aware of his sin, blindness...

Real Spiritual Power

18 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

When the ego grabs power and honor for itself, things get dangerous and dysfunctional very quickly. The ego will want to use power, not for God’s pu...

The Rich Young Man and the Hunger for Eternal Life

11 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In today's Gospel we hear the story of the rich young man who desires eternal life. We all have a hunger for God and goodness. Jesus teaches us that, ...

Sexuality, Love, and Marriage

04 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This week's readings offer a reflection on human sexuality, love and marriage. These readings show us that sexuality is a good, joyful thing when it i...

Would that Everyone Could be a Prophet

27 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Our first reading from the Book of Numbers and the Gospel reading from Mark both highlight a very interesting spiritual predicament, one that is prese...

The Undoing of Original Sin

20 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most important doctrines of the Church is the doctrine of original sin, which asserts that something it off with us. We see the effects of ...

Faith Perfected by Love

13 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Today's second reading from the letter of James discusses the relationship between faith and love. We need a strong faith, but faith without love is l...

Ephphatha

06 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In this week's Gospel, Jesus heals a man who is deaf and dumb. When we read this account at the spiritual level, we see that he cures those who are de...

Law and Laws

30 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

All of today's readings pertain to law. We Americans are a fairly litigious society. Lawyers are thick on the ground and many of our Founding Fathers ...

Lord, To Whom Shall We Go?

23 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In today's Gospel, we see Jesus' followers reacting to his shocking teaching about eating his flesh and drinking his blood by saying, "This is a hard ...

Wisdom's Meal

16 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Today's first reading personifies Wisdom as a woman who invites people to a feast, lavishly offering food and wine. In today's Psalm, we echo that inv...

Spiritual Food

09 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In our first reading today, Elijah is dejected and requests that the Lord take his life. But an angel touches him and orders him to get up and eat. St...

Bread of Life

02 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This week, the Church’s Gospel is again taken from the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. The principle concern of this Gospel is to provide testi...

The Mystery of the Mass

26 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The sixth chapter of John's Gospel, from which we will be reading these next several weeks, is a sustained meditation on the meaning of the Mass and t...

Looking for a Shepherd

19 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In today's first reading, God announces that he himself will shepherd his people. Yet a few sentences later, he suggests that he will raise up a right...

Summed Up in Christ

12 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

For many people in the West, liberty seems to trump everything. We avatars of the egodrama, we worshippers at the altar of freedom, say that our choic...

The Mission of the Prophet

05 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This week's Scriptures illuminate the identity and mission of a prophet—a calling that belongs to all the baptized by virtue of our Baptism. God app...

God Did Not Make Death

28 Jun 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The Book of Wisdom offers us the strange assertion that God did not make death, but formed humanity to be imperishable. This revelation directs us tow...

The Storm at Sea

21 Jun 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The story of Jesus calming the storm at sea is an archetypal description of the church down through the ages. We find ourselves in the midst of storms...

Walking By Faith and Not By Sight

14 Jun 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Sometimes God does things we can't understand. This is where our need to walk by faith and not by sight comes in play. We trust in God's purpose, and ...

The Trinity as Call to Action

31 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

It's often joked that Trinity Sunday is "the preacher's nightmare." But while the Trinity can be viewed as the most arcane and inaccessible Christian ...

Pentecost and the Gift of Language

24 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Today's readings recount the unforgettable events of Pentecost. Language is our primary mode of communication. How wonderful, therefore, that the prin...

Ascension Sunday: The Relationship Between Heaven and Earth

17 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

We tend to read the Ascension along enlightenment lines, as if Christ has gone to a distant, irrelevant place. The reality point is this: Jesus, in as...

God's Marvelous Choice

10 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Today's Gospel present the distinction between a generic spirituality which emphasizes our decision for God, and authentic Christian Faith, which is t...

The Vine and the Branches

03 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

'I am the Vine, and you are the branches.' Jesus is not simply an inspiring teacher to whom we listen. He is a force in which we participate, a body i...

The Good Shepherd

26 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Jesus sums up a long Biblical tradition when he says 'I am the good shepherd.' The prophets and the psalmist had yearned for a time when God himself w...

The Strangeness of the Resurrection

19 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Authentic Christianity does not present Jesus as a ghost, an abstraction, or a disembodied soul. It presents him as risen from the dead, glorified and...

Divine Mercy

12 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

On this Second Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday, we remember the dedication of this day by Saint John Paul II in honor of St. Faustina’s vision...

The Empty Grave

05 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Many people enjoy visiting the graves of famous people, from Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, IL to St. Peter in the Vatican. We feel a sense of peace ...

The Passion Narrative of Mark's Gospel

29 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The Gospels are passion narratives with long introductions, dominated by Jesus' death and resurrection. On this Palm Sunday, as we near the climax of ...

United in the Blood of Jesus

22 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The best way to understand the history of salvation is to understand it as the story of covenants between God and his people. In the Old Testament, co...

Hesed All the Way Through

15 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The Divine Love is the great theme of the Bible. One of the great mistakes we can make is to project onto God our way of being and our subjectivity. G...

The Ten Commandments

08 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Although most of our parents's generation knew the Ten Commandments by heart, few Christians today can recite them. The liturgy today invites us to re...

The Mystical Transfiguration of Christ

01 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The story of the Transfiguration of Christ has beguiled the Christian mind for centuries. It is the clearest New Testament evocation of mystical exper...

The Ark, the Mass, and Re-Ordering the World

22 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

As Lent commences, the pews will be filled with people escaping the chaos of the modern world and finding a place of peace and order within the ship-l...

Evangelizing Out of the Encounter

15 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The strange and unsettling Gospel account of the leper approaching Jesus is the manifestation of the deeply held notions of purity and impurity, notio...

The Spirituality of Pain

08 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Why would an all-powerful and all-loving God allow his people to suffer so much? That's one of the oldest and most difficult theological questions. Ou...

Greater than the Greatest Prophet

01 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Radical Christianity

25 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

When Christianity is reduced to deism or moralism, we turn the Gospel into a faint echo of the surrounding culture. But today's readings propose somet...

The Call of Samuel

18 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The story of the call of Samuel is illuminating for our time of corruption and cleansing. I argue that the sex abuse scandal in the church should be r...

Priest, Prophet, and King

11 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

All the baptized participate in Christ. Since Christ is the fulfillment of the priest, prophet, and king that means that all the baptized are those as...

Feast of the Epiphany

04 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Our modern culture suggests a tension between spirituality and religion. But the Magi in today's Gospel demonstrate that when spirituality is lifted u...

Keeping Your Family Holy

28 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

The Bible is not particularly sentimental about families. What makes a family holy, as far as the biblical writers are concerned, is its willingness t...

Adam, David, and Jesus

21 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Adam had a kingly mission. However, he became a bad king. David was meant to restore kingship to its proper form. However, he failed too. But Christ, ...

A Not Very Cozy Advent

14 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Christ proclaims himself as the King of everything. This is a bold claim for it puts everything under him. However, he is a very different King than w...

The Victory of God

07 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Today we hear the first line of St. Mark' Gospel, which in a sense contains the whole Gospel message. It expresses the euangelion, the good news of Ch...

We Need a Savior

30 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

The single biggest challenge of the Advent season is to feel our need for a savior. The truth is, we can't solve our problem through an act of the wil...

He Reigns! The Solemnity of Christ the King

23 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

When Israel begins to long for a new David, the true David and true king of the world, we witness the longing for God. Jesus Christ is precisely this ...

Parable of the Talents

16 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Your being increases in the measure that you give it away. That's the law of the gift, and it can be found from end to end of the Bible. One applicati...

St. John Lateran and the Meaning of Church Buildings

05 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Today we celebrate the great Feast of the Dedication of St. John Lateran Basilica, which is the Pope's cathedral church. It's a time to remember that ...

All Souls' Day and the Mystery of Immortality

02 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Near death experiences, the loss of a loved one, other other out-of-body occurrences point toward the truth that we are meant to be born out of this w...

Pier Giorgio Frassati and Social Justice

26 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Is the Catholic Church a proponent of social justice? Yes, according to this week's readings. They reveal a compassionate God, who hears the cries of ...

Caesar and God

19 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Jesus places everything in its proper relationship to God. But he also chastises those who are involved in power games. God is ultimately in charge an...

The Parable of the Wedding Banquet

12 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Many devout believers find the parable of the wedding feast in the Gospel of Matthew difficult to understand. The story is meant to stir us up with it...

Peace Beyond Understanding

05 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

At the end of his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul reveals the secret to a peaceful life. Serenity of spirit, born of the confidence that one is li...

Taking Spiritual Responsibility

28 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Today's readings show that one can and should stand before God, individually, and assume spiritual responsibility. That responsibility is not collecti...

Going Beyond a Mercenary Love for God

21 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

The Bible constantly warns against a merely mercenary relationship with God—a friendship of convenience or self-interest. We should not love God sim...

Venerating the Cross

14 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

When we live in convenient darkness, unaware of our sins, we will never make spiritual progress. We need the light, however painful it is. Once that l...

Correcting a Brother

07 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Should we address someone who is in the wrong? This week's Gospel cautions against gossip and malicious criticism, but it also explains how to frtuifu...

"But for Wales...?"

31 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

All must be aware of the possibility of losing one's soul in pursuit of gaining the world. One will inevitably face opposition from the world. Will yo...

Inscrutable and Faithful

24 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

The God of Israel is mysterious and inscrutable and at the same time is totally faithful and loving. Like the children of a loving parent, we might no...