The Bracing Figure of John the Baptist

Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

Bishop Robert Barron

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

4.8 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2010

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

The first step in the spiritual life is simple: you must see your life not as your own project but as a vehicle for God's purposes. However, we are all absorbed in our own lives, forgetting that the road to God is one of self-forgetfulness. This disposition helps us to focus on Christ and his mission. But in order for us to do this we must be cleansed of all attachments and baptized in the fiery love of God.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Cardinal Francis George. I invite you to join me for the next two minutes to reflect
0:09.0	with Father Robert Barron on the Word of God, which is the Word on Fire. Word on Fire Catholic
0:14.2	Ministries is a non-profit ministry at the forefront of Catholic evangelization, using
0:18.9	new media to spread the faith and every continent. Father Barron challenges us to open our hearts
0:23.9	to the Word on Fire, which is God's Word of Love for each of us. If our hearts are open,
0:29.5	the Lord can change and transform us so that we might speak with love about the one who
0:34.6	is love. The global benefactors of Word on Fire with the support of the Archdiocese of
0:39.4	Chicago now present Word on Fire. Peace be with you. Friends, on this second Sunday of
0:48.4	Advent, St. Matthew compels us to come to grips with the great figure of John the Baptist.
0:56.8	It's really impossible to grasp the significance of Jesus without passing through as it were
1:02.5	the cleansing bath of John the Baptist. To shift the metaphor, he provides a lens through
1:11.6	which Jesus is properly interpreted. Every detail of his account, I think, is worthy of our
1:18.2	attention. Take some time, maybe later this afternoon, to sit down with this passage from
1:24.9	the beginning of Matthew's gospel and read through it in a meditative spirit. Matthew tells us
1:31.8	that John made his appearance as a preacher in the desert of Judea. I was in the Judea
1:37.8	desert a couple years ago, filming for our Catholicism series. It was one of the most powerful
1:42.6	places that I've been on these trips around the world. Something about the beauty, but also
1:47.1	the starkness of that desert. What is it about deserts in the Bible? Moses spends years in the desert
1:57.4	before taking up his work. Elijah, sojourns in a deserted place at a crisis point in his ministry.
2:06.0	Of course, the Israelites have to pass through the desert 40 years on the way to the promised land.
2:14.0	Jesus himself spends 40 days and nights in the desert before beginning his public work.
2:20.6	And of course, at the beginning of the Christian movement, monks sequester themselves in caves
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