Christmas Surprise

Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

Bishop Robert Barron

Spirituality, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality:christianity

4.8 • 4.9K Ratings

🗓️ 30 December 2001

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Everything about Luke's familiar Christmas story is surprising. Mary and Joseph, the inn, the child wrapped in swaddling clothes, the manger, the angels and shepherds--all challenge our ordinary conceptions of what is good, right, and powerful. Listen again to this story and hear it as, in the strict sense of the term, "subversive."

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Cardinal Francis George, and I invite you to join me for the next few minutes to
0:04.6	reflect with Father Robert Barron on the Word of God, which is the Word on Fire.
0:11.1	Father Barron will challenge us to open our hearts to the Word on Fire, which is God's
0:15.5	Word of Love for each of us.
0:17.8	If our hearts are open, the Lord can change and transform us, so that we might speak with
0:22.8	love about the one who is love.
0:26.1	The Archdiocese of Chicago through the generosity of Sacred Heart Parish and Winnetka now presents
0:31.0	the Word on Fire.
0:33.3	Peace be with you and Merry Christmas.
0:36.1	Today we're reflecting on this wonderful, surprising, interesting, strange story from
0:43.3	the Gospel of Luke.
0:45.2	The story we always read at midnight mass.
0:48.9	The one that has appealed most to poets and artists and to scholars over the centuries.
0:54.5	It's a story that I'm afraid sometimes has become bland through over familiarity.
1:02.0	We hear the first few lines and we say, oh, yeah, that's that wonderful Christmas story.
1:05.2	I know that.
1:06.2	And then we don't really listen.
1:08.0	Or it's even worse, it's become banal through sentimentalizing.
1:13.4	All that's that nice, cute, sentimental Christmas story.
1:17.1	What I want to say today is that this account in the Gospel of Luke is at every point
1:24.3	subversive.
1:26.5	Only when we understand that are we really understanding what Luke is trying to tell us
	...

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