Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

The Eucharist has been, from the beginning, a source of conflict and division. This is, of course, not Christ's will, for the eucharist is supposed to be the great unifier. Nevertheless, for the past two thousand years, the radical doctrine of the real presence has compelled some to rebel. Why is this? Take a listen.

Our Gospel for this weekend is the climax of Jesus' Bread of Life Discourse from the sixth chapter of John's Gospel. Given every opportunity to offer a symbolic interpretation of his words concerning his body and blood, Jesus intensifies the realism of his statement: "My flesh is real food; my blood is real drink." All Catholics must wrestle, in season and out, with the implications of this claim.

In our second reading for this weekend, St. Peter tells us that, in sharing the Christian story, he was not trading in "cleverly concocted myths." There is a sharp distinction to be drawn between myth and history, and it matters enormously that Christianity is not a mythic system, but an historical religion. This feast of the Transfiguration gives us the opportunity to reflect on this difference.

We continue our reading of Paul's extraordinary letter to the Ephesians. We hear that the cross of Jesus has broken down the wall of enmity which divided Jews and Gentiles. At the very center of Christianity is the conviction that the death of Jesus on the cross represented God's victory over all the dark forces that divide us. What looked like ultimate defeat was in fact God's triumph over the power of division.

For the next several weeks, we are going to be reading from Paul's magnificent letter to the Ephesians. In our passage for today, we learn that we are situated within the context of a great theodrama, written and directed by God, and designed to lead us to eternal life. The Biblical drama has five acts: creation, the fall, the formation of Israel, Jesus Christ, and the Church. We read the Scriptures in order to discern the contours of that drama and, more importantly, our place within it.

Every baptized person is conformed to Christ: King, Priest, and Prophet. Thus speaking the divine truth (prophecy) is not the concern of priests and bishops alone, but of all members of the church. From Ezekiel and Mark, we can discern a number of qualities of the prophetic office. First, the prophet does not speak his own word, but God's. Second, the prophet is given a difficult assignment. And third, the prophet is summoned, not to success, but faithfulness.

In order to understand the power of our Gospel reading for this week, we must attend to the book of Leviticus. In that great rule-book of Israelite life, we hear that contact with a hemorrhaging woman or with a corpse would result in ritual uncleanliness. When Jesus touches the hemorrhaging woman and the dead daughter of Jairus, he is not made unclean; in fact he makes them clean. In so doing, he redefines what it means to be a member of the true people of Israel.

Psalm 130 begins with the words, "out of the depths, I have cried to you, O Lord." Throughout the great tradition, the prayer ""de profundis,"" (out of the depths) has been one of the most powerful expressions of our reliance upon God. When our lives have bottomed out, when we are lost and at the end of our strength, we turn to God. The cry of the apostles in the boat, as the waves crash over the side and threaten to drown them, is a New Testament example of this prayer. Do you need to pray it today?

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.