Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

At the heart of the Christian moral and spiritual life is a willingness to risk. When we cling selfishly and protectively to what God has given us, we dry up. But when we risk it, give it away in love, we increase the life within us.

We hear today the parable of the five wise and five foolish virgins. The former are ready for the bridegroom when he comes; the latter are not. We have no idea when Christ will come to gather us to himself: so we must be ready--through prayer, the sacraments, and forgiveness.

The problem with the Pharisees is not what they teach. It is that they use religion--the very thing that is meant to take us out of ourselves--as a means of aggrandizing the ego. Law, custom, practice, religious dress, titles--all of it becomes a way of trumpeting the self.

We must render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's. But we must also recall that everything belongs to God, including Caesar! Secular government and culture have their legitimate place, but they are not independent of God and God's purposes.

The world and its wonders are not ours to own. Rather they are given to us in trust; we are their tenants. When we forget this basic fact, we invite disaster and degenerate into moral corruption. We must remember that we are servants and God the master.

The second reading for Mass today contains one of the most beautiful passages in the New Testament, St. Paul's hymn to the self-emptying love of Christ. We sinners cling to godliness; the true God does not, but rather gives himself away in humility and love. The cross of Jesus is thus the undoing of the sin of Eden.

God's ways are not our ways; God's thoughts are not our thoughts. How is God's love playing itself out in the world? It isn't always easy to see, for there are so many injustices, so much innocent suffering, so much out of balance. But the dispensing of grace is God's business, not ours, and so we should ask the question "why?" not in a spirit of rebellion, but in an attitude of awe.

Last week we heard of the grace by which Peter correctly confessed the identity of Jesus. This week, we hear of his weakness. Opposing the cross, he becomes an ally of the dark powers. The Church is infallible and the Church is made up of sinners. When we forget one or the other, we fall into trouble.

The Church of Jesus Christ is governed, not by popular opinion polls, nor even by the holiness of the saints, but by the strange grace that comes to the successors of St. Peter. Hardly the brightest or holiest of Jesus disciples, Peter was nevertheless the one who saw and understood.

The Syro-Phoenicean woman stands for all those who are marginalized, ostracized, ignored, set aside. Through her persistance and cleverness, she obtains what she wants from Jesus. The Church must be that body of people who listen to the persistant cries of the poor and the forgotten.