Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon | Be a holy priesthood

Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon | Be a holy priesthood

Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon  

May 7, 2023 

Fifth Sunday of Easter 

Be a holy priesthood

Friends, there is an enormously important line in our first reading today that we might just pass over: “The number of the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly; even a large group of priests were becoming obedient to the faith.” Priests were so important in Jewish religious life, and these priests knew that Jesus was the fulfillment of the whole tradition of temple sacrifice. We, all the baptized, do not just admire Christ’s supreme priesthood from afar; we participate in it.g! 

Gospel: Jn 14:1-12 

Jesus said to his disciples: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where I am going you know the way." Thomas said to him, "Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him." Philip said to him, "Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father." 

*United States Conference of Catholic

 

Bishop Robert Barron

Friends, today in the Last Supper discourse, Jesus reveals the mutual indwelling—the coinherence—of the Father and the Son. 

John Dunne told us that "no man is an island." Rather, we are all interconnected. How do we identify ourselves? Almost exclusively through the naming of relationships. Coinherence is indeed the name of the game, at all levels of reality. 

And Jesus lays out for us the coinherence that obtains within the very existence of God. "Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?" Though Father and Son are really distinct, they are utterly implicated in each other by a mutual act of love. 

Now, the impossibly good news is that Jesus and the Father have invited us to participate in the life that they share, to enter fully into their coinherence. "In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places." What is the "house" of the Father but his own life? Jesus’ point is that there is infinite room within the expanse of God’s life. The love between the Father and the Son—which is called "the Holy Spirit"—can be penetrated, entered into, participated in.