Videos from selected homilists; Transcript excerpts from Fr. Hawkswell, Fr. Fleming, Fr. Chama, Msgr. Pellegrino, Fr. Sigma, Fr. Kavanaugh’s homilies; Bishop Barron podcasts; Life Issues; Doctrinal Homily Outlines
BC CATHOLIC | 2021
To follow Jesus, we must deny ourselves and take up our crosses, as he did. Those who try to save their lives will lose them; those who lose their lives for his sake will save them.
This paradox runs all through Jesus’ teaching. If we are poor, sad, persecuted, insulted, or slandered, the world calls us unfortunate; if we are meek, merciful, or peaceable, the world calls us weak, timid, or lazy; if we are hungry for righteousness or single-hearted in our devotion to God, the world calls us unrealistic and impractical.
But Jesus said we should consider ourselves blest. As soon as we see things “in the right perspective” – “in terms of God’s values” – “the standards of the world are turned upside down,” said Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
We see a similar paradox when we ask the question at the beginning of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: If God cares for us, “why do evil and suffering exist?” The short answer – which takes the whole of the Catholic faith to explain it – is, because love exists.…..
KUALA LUMPUR | 2021
St Peter’s confession of faith is not only the turning point in St Mark’s gospel narrative but also a turning point in his relationship with the Lord. The disciple’s identity and mission pivots on the identity and mission of the Lord. To follow Him, which is to say to imitate Him, requires that they first know who He is. But to grasp that Jesus is the Messiah, is not the same as understanding what it means to be the Messiah. What the Lord does or must do, they must follow. Here, we see a breakthrough, a burst of light, a moment of enlightenment. But with every breakthrough there must be resistance, and with light, comes the shadow cast by darkness. On the one hand, Peter, the representative of all disciples, gets it but moments later we realise that he still has much to learn, to grow in both understanding and commitment.
Instead of looking at the famous exchange between St Peter and our Lord, I would like to lead you to consider the teaching of our Lord in the last part of today’s passage. It was precisely Peter’s gross misunderstanding of this teaching, which got him into trouble.
The saying of our Lord here is perhaps one of His most ironic and paradoxical. Whenever we wish to win people to a cause, a party or a club, we point out the advantages they would gain should they join our group. No sane person would paint a dark sombre picture of your organisation and expect to get long lines queuing up to sign up. When our Lord wanted people to follow Him, He said some very strange words: “If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.”…..
A CONCORD PASTOR COMMENTS | 2015
Jesus poses simple but penetrating questions as he does here when he asks, “Who do you say that I am?” Last night I celebrated Mass for my high school classmates at our 50th reunion. I invited them to think back a half-century to how we might have answered Jesus’ question as graduating seniors from Bishop Fenwick High School in Peabody.
– Who was Jesus for us when we were 17/18 years old?
– Who did we say Jesus was for us in college?
– And how did we answer that same question as we married, had children, raised families and met the situations and circumstances, the joys and happiness, the losses and pain that come into every life?
In the good times and in the bad times how have we answered the question, “Who do you say that I am.”
DIOCESE OF ST. PETERSBURG | 2021
The first reading for today is taken from the second part of the Book of Isaiah, sometimes referred to as Second Isaiah. I want to point out part of the passage:
The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I turned not backward. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I hid not my face from shame and spitting. For the Lord GOD helps me; therefore, I have not been confounded; therefore, I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near.
Second Isaiah is written for people in exile. The People of Israel suffered because they had been taken away from their homeland by the Babylonians. Yet, they knew that this was God’s punishment for their turning to pagan ways. This second part of Isaiah is the Book of Consolation. The prophet says that a day will come when the sins of the people will be expiated and God will lead them back home. Today’s reading is the third Song of the Suffering Servant. A prophet shall come who will willing take upon himself the guilt of the people so that he can suffer for them. He is not a masochist. He does not want to suffer, but he does want to sacrifice himself out of love for God and his people. …
CATHOLIC PREACHING | 2021
This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday, when we will eavesdrop and participate in perhaps the most pivotal dialogue in the Gospel, when Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” and “Who do you say that I am?”
In response to the first question, the poll of what other people were saying, the disciples were eager to respond. They informed him that the people were numbering Jesus among the greatest Jewish heroes of all time, like the prophets Elijah and Jeremiah, and, more recently, John the Baptist. But Jesus didn’t stop there. First, because it wasn’t enough to rest on what the surveys said, to rely on what others believed, despite the exalted circles into which people were placing Jesus. Second, because the assessments weren’t true. Jesus was far greater than Elijah, Jeremiah and John. He was greater than Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon. Third,because Jesus didn’t want those with him merely to remain “fans” or “admirers” of him because that would not set them on the path on which he had come into the world to lead them.
BUILDING ON THE WORD | 2006
Nobody wants to fail. None of us tries to make mistakes. All of us are embarrassed when we mess up. But mess up we do. Failing is a part of living, and all of us can fail in a variety of ways. We can fail in our relationships: hurting our marriage, our children, our friends. We can fail in our jobs, taking on more than we can handle, cutting corners that lead to disaster, betraying the trust that others place in us. We can fail ourselves: giving in to apathy and self-pity, nurturing a private selfishness, trading in on our good name.
There are many ways to fail. The question is not whether we will make a mistake, but how we will respond when we do. Here is where the experience of Peter can help us. In today’s gospel, among the villages of Caesarea Philippi, Peter makes a serious mistake. Buoyed up with pride at his ability to realize that Jesus is the Messiah, he pushes off from that shaky foundation and challenges Jesus. He corrects the Lord, when Jesus announces his upcoming passion and death. Peter oversteps his bounds, reveals his ignorance, and betrays the trust that Jesus had placed in him. Jesus reacts strongly, pushing Peter aside and calling him Satan. This failure of Peter foreshadows an even greater failure, when, during the passion, Peter three times denies Christ. There is no doubt that Peter was a good person, that Peter had great intentions and a big heart. But there is also no doubt that Peter made big mistakes. Peter is like us, and his experience in today’s gospel points to two truths which we need to remember when we fail.
THE REASON FOR OUR HOPE | 2018
Today we hear three words that most people don’t like. I’m sure you all love them. But everybody else hates them. And I’m not really sure about of all you either or me and that is deny, cross, follow. Aren’t they three great words? That we’re called to deny our self. We’re called to pick up our cross. And we’re called to follow Jesus. In a society that likes to have it your way, go for the gusto, look for self-fulfillment, run from the cross, and follow nobody else but themselves and their wills. And now Christ is telling us something different. And so He is saying to each of us if you want to follow me, if you want to come after my steps, if you want to be my disciple this is what you must do. Now first of all, I caution you, that you don’t make this a religious practice. You know a selfdiscipline in your life. Okay, I will deny myself. I will pick up my cross and I will follow after Jesus and it becomes a self-centered thing. Because again as we talked about a million times Christianity is never ever, ever, the focus on self but the forgetfulness of self. So we don’t come to Jesus and just focus on ourselves. It’s always about if I’m going to be like Jesus that means I must give away my life and love. That’s what He did and that’s you and I must do.
SUNDAY WEB SITE | 1997
What good is it to profess faith without practicing it? Such faith has “no power to save.” The writer of the Epistle is very clear. Faith may be the central response in our relationship to God; but faith, like love, must find expression in our actions if it is to be real.
If I see someone starving and, making a quick getaway, bless that person with “Good-bye and good luck,” I have a faith problem. To say, “I hope you keep warm and well fed,” but to do nothing to help others in their bodily needs, is to have a thoroughly lifeless faith.
There are parts of scripture I may want to reject. “You cannot mean this. You will never demand this.” Yet faith does have its demands. It makes claims on us. Its implications are daunting.
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS | 2021
All human relationships are based on communication, understanding, and acceptance. The Bible tells us that God created man and called him from non-life to life, from nothingness to existence, in order to build a deep relationship expressed in honoring, loving, and serving him. Generally, we find three types of persons in life: persons who listen attentively to God, persons who suffer for God, and persons who deeply experience the presence of God and live in it. A well-designed life has both joy and sorrow, thought and action. A life of Joy and no sorrow can become like terrain with all sunshine and no rain, a barren desert. Both sufferings and joy, and both faith and good works are necessary for the life of a good Christian. We realize that every human person is the being whom God has enabled to “listen”, like the disciples. He is a disciple of God, which entails not only theoretical listening but also the kind of listening that leads to action, to the implementation of what he has heard, of the original voice that precedes him and that regulates his life. In other words, man is an obedient disciple of God. Suffering is the anvil on which man is forged; it is the mold in which his personality is shaped; it is the real and mysterious code of the human condition.
Photo above will be replaced by video when sermon is available. Check below for a list of Bishop’s most recent sermons.
GOD SUFFERS FOR USby Bishop Robert Barron . September 12, 2021
Friends, with our readings from this weekend, we are on very holy ground because we’re dealing with the imagery, symbolism, and theology of the suffering servant. Yes, he is the one who will bring God’s salvation to all the world, but he will do it by bearing the…
FAITH PERFECTED BY LOVEby Bishop Robert Barron . September 16, 2018 .
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 lifeless so we must respond to grace and faith with acts of love.
THE WAY OF THE ONEby Bishop Robert Barron . September 13, 2009
Peter’s magnificent confession of faith in the Lord Jesus illuminates, not only his divine identity, but it provides for us a great spiritual lesson in regards to how necessary it is to curtail the self striving of the ego in its need comfort and glory. In this regard, Christ invites, not only Peter, but all of us, into a new way of being in which negation of the ego and the practice of self denial enable us to grow in our capacity for love.
THE TRUE DAVIDIC MESSIAHby Bishop Robert Barron . September 17, 2006
Another homily from Fr. Robert Barron and Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.
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 central concerns are, and what the demands upon it are. The setting is Jesus sending out seventy-two disciples. Put yourself in that position: all of us baptized people are disciples of the Lord, and we’re in a relationship with him. He is sending us out on mission.
But He invites us to take up our own crosses – everything that goes with our following of Jesus which in itself is not easy as it requires a lot not only of discipline but also and specially of faith on our part.
A cross-less Christianity is a feel-good Christianity. It is a Christianity of convenience. It is a domesticated Christianity devoid of the radical consequences of discipleship
We learn to trust a person who demonstrates trustworthiness. Friendships, professional relationships, and intimate affective bonds grow and develop according to the level of our trust and knowledge of the other.
We are challenged daily to think like God, live in the presence of God especially in difficult and distracting circumstances and consider the finality of our lives.
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Sunday Readings
