God's Subversive Ways

Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

Bishop Robert Barron

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

4.8 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2002

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Christmas story is essentially a tale of subversion. Everything the world holds up as beautiful and worthy of attention is undermined: wealth, power, privilege, comfort. The icon of God is not the mighty Caesar Augustus, but the little child of Bethlehem, too weak to hold up his own head. Real power is love: there is the subversive message of Christmas.

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.
0:11.2	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.
0:26.2	The Archdiocese of Chicago through the generosity of Sacred Heart Parish and Winetka now presents
0:31.1	the Word on Fire.
0:33.6	Peace be with you, and Merry Christmas.
0:36.2	Today, Christians, we read this great story from the Gospel of Luke, the well-known
0:42.2	story of Christmas.
0:45.4	There's a problem, you know, with approaching this narrative, that it becomes bland through
0:51.2	over familiarity.
0:53.3	We hear the first few lines of it and we say, oh, yeah, that's the Christmas story.
0:56.6	I know how that goes.
0:58.7	Or it's even worse, it becomes banal through sentimentalizing.
1:02.8	Oh, that's that charming story that we tell our kids.
1:06.4	Can I say this?
1:08.8	The Christmas story is anything but bland, banal, sentimental.
1:14.6	In fact, I'm with C.S. Lewis in saying the Christmas story is subversive.
1:22.8	And that, it sums up the whole of the Christian message.
1:25.5	Look, the sinful world is a world gone wrong.
	...

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