Word on Fire Reflection

Bishop Robert Barron Friends, today we celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. How strange this feast would have sounded to someone in the ancient world! The triumph of the cross! It would have been analogous to someone speaking today of the triumph of the electric chair or the exaltation of the noose. The cross … Read moreWednesday, September 14, 2022

Bishop Robert Barron Friends, our Gospel today gives us Jesus’ raising of the son of the widow of Nain. This is a prime exemplification of the key Gospel truth that everything Jesus said and did, in one way or another, is an anticipation of his Resurrection. The God of Israel, the God of Jesus Christ, … Read moreTuesday, September 13, 2022

Bishop Robert Barron Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus is amazed at a Roman centurion’s faith: “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” How often the Bible compels us to meditate on the meaning of faith! We might say that the Scriptures rest upon faith, remain inspired at every turn by … Read moreMonday, September 12, 2022

Bishop Robert Barron Friends, today’s Gospel passage recounts the story of the shepherd finding his lost sheep. Let’s look at that lost sheep. A sheep is something more than a lost coin—which is to say, it has mobility, sense, appetites, and so on. Many years ago, when I was on retreat at the Abbey of … Read moreSunday, September 11, 2022

Bishop Robert Barron Friends, today’s Gospel is Luke’s conclusion to the Sermon on the Plain. Someone who comes to me, Jesus says, who “listens to my words, and acts on them. That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when the flood came, the river … Read moreSaturday, September 10, 2022

Bishop Robert Barron Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus commands us to stop judging others. He asks, “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?” We are exceptionally good at seeing the fault in others, but we are exceptionally adept at ignoring it … Read moreFriday, September 9, 2022

Bishop Robert Barron Friends, today we celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And our Gospel declares that she will be the Mother of Jesus, who would be “God with us.” Mary is a rich and multivalent symbolic figure in all of the Gospels. In Luke’s infancy narrative, she emerges as … Read moreThursday, September 8, 2022

Bishop Robert Barron Friends, our Gospel for today is Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, less well-known than Matthew’s but actually punchier, more to the point. It all hinges on detachment, that decisively important spiritual attitude—apatheia in the Greek fathers, indifferencia in Ignatius of Loyola. Spiritual detachment means that I am unattached to worldly values that … Read moreWednesday, September 7, 2022

Bishop Robert Barron Friends, after Jesus names his twelve Apostles in today’s Gospel, he heals a multitude of people. And that multitude represents us, for we all stand in need of the Savior’s healing touch. We are made for love and connection and justice and nonviolence, but at every turn and in every way we … Read moreTuesday, September 6, 2022

Bishop Robert Barron Friends, in our Gospel today, Jesus heals a man with a withered hand. As I’ve said many times before, we tend to domesticate Christ, reducing him to a guru or a teacher, one spiritual guide among many. But this is to do violence to the Gospel, which presents him not simply as … Read moreMonday, September 5, 2022