WOF 059: Bishop Barron on "Silence"
The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture
Brandon Vogt
4.9 • 5.8K Ratings
🗓️ 24 January 2017
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The much-anticipated "Silence", based upon the Shusaku Endo novel of the same name, is a worthy addition to the Scorsese oeuvre. It is marked by gorgeous cinematography, outstanding performances from both lead and supporting actors, a gripping narrative, and enough thematic complexity to keep you discussing the film for the foreseeable future. In this episode of the Word on Fire Show, Bishop Barron discusses his insights about "Silence" [SPOILER ALERT]. The listener question comes from a young child who wonders where we were before God made us.
Topics Discussed
- 0:17 - Introduction, Bishop Barron's Christmas vacation and silent retreat
- 3:35 - What is the premise of "Silence"?
- 4:55 - What was Bishop Barron's reaction to reading the book for the first time?
- 5:45 - How would you react if your great spiritual hero abandoned the faith?
- 6:58 - What is the significance of the moment when the priests arrive in Japan
- 9:25 - How do we approach the question of whether or not we would keep our faith under persecution?
- 11:35 - What do we make of Fr. Rodriguez's conclusion that it is ok to step on Jesus' face?
- 14:45 - How do we approach the idea that we can do something wrong in order to create a greater good?
- 16:45 - Why has the Christian faith had such difficulty flourishing in Japan?
- 20:35 - What does Bishop Barron think about Martin Scorsese?
- 24:10 - Who is the hero of this film?
- 25:20 - Question from listener: How did we start before we were born?
Bonus Resources
- Videos
- DVD's
- CATHOLICISM: The New Evangelization (Word On Fire)
- Faith Clips (Word On Fire)
- Articles
- "The Martian" and Why Each Life Matters (Bishop Barron)
- "The Avengers" and Friedrich Nietzsche (Bishop Barron)
- "The Theory of Everything": A God-Haunted Film (Bishop Barron)
- Books
- Silence by Shusaku Endo
- Seeds of the Word: Finding God in the Culture by Bishop Barron
- Word On Fire: Proclaiming the Power of Christ by Bishop Barron
- Study Program
- The Mystery of God: Who God Is and Why He Matters (Bishop Barron)
- Websites
- Word On Fire (Proclaiming Christ in the Culture)
Find bonus links and resources for this episode at http://WordOnFireShow.com and, again, be sure to submit your questions at http://AskBishopBarron.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Brandon Vat, the content director at Word |
| 0:09.7 | on Fire. And joining us this week after a couple weeks off is Bishop Robert Barron. Bishop |
| 0:15.1 | Barron, it's wonderful to have you back. |
| 0:17.1 | Hey Brandon, how you doing? |
| 0:19.3 | I'm doing great. Now we're recording this on the other side of the New Year. It's 2017. |
| 0:25.2 | How was Christmas and New Year's for you? |
| 0:28.2 | Good, good. I had Christmas Eve here in the region. I said, Mass at one of our local |
| 0:35.0 | prisons for young people in Ventura. And then Christmas Eve in the evening, I was at one of our |
| 0:41.4 | great parishes in Carpenteria. And then I flew home on Christmas Day and I spent a week in Chicago |
| 0:49.0 | visiting family and friends and all my Mondalein connections. Then I flew back and that very next day |
| 0:55.9 | I started the retreat with the bishops of the LA province. So mostly the bishops from like |
| 1:02.6 | Southern California all gathered at the House of Prayer, which is a great place in LA, not far from |
| 1:09.4 | the Hollywood sign. It's right near the Griffith Park Observatory, that area if you know Los Angeles. |
| 1:15.9 | So we spent a full week there, pretty much in silence. And I just got back from that a couple |
| 1:22.9 | days ago. So how does a retreat like that work? Is there a retreat leader or mastery giving talks |
| 1:28.5 | or are you sort of self-directed? How did it work? The way we do it here, which I like is the retreat |
| 1:33.6 | is basically in silence. So we take our meals in silence. We had a couple of nights that we would |
| 1:40.1 | break that tradition so we could visit with each other at dinner time. But mostly silence, |
| 1:45.4 | then each one of us is assigned a spiritual director. So I think there were five priests |
| 1:50.3 | that volunteered to do the spiritual direction. And then we met each one of us met for about an hour |
| 1:56.6 | a day with the director. And last year I worked with a Jesuit and I did the Ignatian exercises. |
| 2:04.7 | This year it was actually a wonderful priest from my own region, Father Matt Elsoff, who's a |
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