August 20, 2023

 

Friends, our Gospel today from Matthew 15, the famous story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman, is one of those Gospels that bothers and unnerves people. How should we read it? It is not that Jesus was grouchy after a tough day of ministry, and this plucky woman speaks truth to power to get what she wants. We are meant to read it in a much more subtle way. This story is driving at an issue that is central to the Bible—namely, the relationship between Israel and the other nations.

Mass Readings

• Reading 1 — Is 56:1, 6-7
• Psalm — Ps 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8
• Reading 2 — Rom 11:13-15, 29-32
• Gospel — Mt 15:21-28

August 13, 2023

Friends, our Gospel for today is Matthew’s account of the calming of the storm and the walking on the water. This is an event that reached very deeply into the hearts and minds of the first Christians: we can find an account of it in all four Gospels. And the iconic representation in the Gospels shows us the theological and spiritual implications of this real event. It is an image of the Church, the barque of Peter, passing through the stormy times of life.

Mass Readings

• Reading 1 – 1 Kgs 19:9a, 11-13a
• Psalm – Ps 85:9, 10, 11-12, 13-14
• Reading 2 – Rom 9:1-5
• Gospel – Mt 14:22-33

August 6

Friends, it’s a wonderful grace that the Feast of the Transfiguration this year falls on Sunday. The first reading the Church gives us from the seventh chapter of the book of Daniel might strike you as curious, but it’s very apropos. Daniel has a vision of four beasts rising from the sea, symbolic of four worldly kingdoms, each one being destroyed in preparation for a final kingdom—the kingdom of God. In Jesus’ time, they read these four kingdoms as Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. If you think this is just wild speculation that had nothing to do with Jesus, think again.

Mass ReadingsReading 1 – Dn 7:9-10, 13-14
Psalm – Ps 97:1-2, 5-6, 9
Reading 2 – 2 Pt 1:16-19
Gospel – Mt 17:1-9

Discover more sermons from Bishop Barron here.

BIBLE REFERENCESMatthew 17:1-9

Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon

Friends, it’s a wonderful grace that the Feast of the Transfiguration this year falls on Sunday. The first reading the Church gives us from the seventh chapter of the book of Daniel might strike you as curious, but it’s very apropos. Daniel has a vision of four beasts rising from the sea, symbolic of four worldly kingdoms, each one being destroyed in preparation for a final kingdom—the kingdom of God. In Jesus’ time, they read these four kingdoms as Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. If you think this is just wild speculation that had nothing to do with Jesus, think again.

Mass ReadingsReading 1 – Dn 7:9-10, 13-14
Psalm – Ps 97:1-2, 5-6, 9
Reading 2 – 2 Pt 1:16-19
Gospel – Mt 17:1-9

Discover more sermons from Bishop Barron here.

BIBLE REFERENCESMatthew 17:1-9