Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

Jesus tells Peter that he will build his ekklesia on the rock of Peter's confession. The word ekklesia means "called out from." To be a member of the church is to be called personally by Christ out of the world and into a new way of being.

The Church never tires of confessing the divinity of Jesus, for in that confession, the Church finds its whole identity. Over the centuries--and in the present day--many have tried to portray Jesus as no more than an inspired teacher. But the disciples who witnessed Christ walking on the water know better. They confess "truly, you are the Son of God."

We have the special privilege of hearing Jesus himself interpret one of his parables. He tells us the three basic reasons why the Word is not accepted into our hearts: lack of understanding, lack of discipline, and lack of prioritization.

The Gospel for today allows us to overhear a conversation between the Father and the Son. We learn that the Son receives everything from his Father, that he is, in a word, yoked to the Father. When the Lord tells us to take his yoke, he is inviting us to pull with him, receiving through him the life that he receives from the Father.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul tells us that Jesus is the new Adam or the second Adam. He means that Christ sums up the history of Israel and renews the human race.

One of the key themes of the Bible is the divine election, the fact that God chooses. But God chooses, not on the basis of merit, but simply through and because of his grace. And he chooses, not to glorify those whom he elects, but rather to give them a mission of love. Accordingly, he chose Israel so that it might be a priestly nation; and he chose the twelve so that they might proclaim the kingdom, and he chose us the baptized that we might be conduits of his grace to the world.

Paul's letter to the Romans explores the great theme of justification, the process by which we become rectified or straightened out in regard to God. Key to this process, says Paul, is faith, that is to say, trust in the Lord. What has thrown us off-kilter is precisely a tendency to rely on our own powers. But when we, like Abraham our father in faith, learn to trust, then the divine life can flow into us and through us to the world.

What is the foundation of your life? How goes it with your heart? Are you building your spiritual house on sand or on rock? These are the fundamental questions that both the book of Deuteronomy and the Gospel of Matthew pose for us as we return to Ordinary Time.

In 1264, Pope Urban IV asked Thomas Aquinas to compose the office for the newly established feast of Corpus Christi. Thomas's texts are both beautiful and profound. By studying them, we can learn much of the Church's theology of the eucharist. He tells us that Christ serves us, with his own hands, the bread of angels.

There is no question more important than this one: who is God? The doctrine of the Trinity is the Christian answer to that question. The Trinity is simply a doctrinally exact way of stating the belief that God is love. If love is what God is, then in the very being of God there must be lover, beloved, and love.