Bishop Robert Barron’s Speech at the National Eucharistic Congress (Transcript)

But strangely, Knox said, there is a command of Jesus that we have, over the centuries, consistently obeyed, and that is, “Do this in remembrance of Me.” Despite our sins, despite our failure, despite our stupidity, and all of that, somehow we’ve known, everybody, by a very deep instinct, that we must follow that command of the Lord. We’ve known, somehow, in our hearts, how indispensable the Eucharist is.

The Real Presence

And we’ve known, somehow, in our hearts, how indispensable the Eucharist is. “This is My body,” Jesus says. “This is My blood.” And because He’s not just one prophet among many, not simply a wisdom figure, but rather, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, because He’s that, what He says is.

That’s the basic theology of the church. That’s the theology of the real presence. That’s why we’re here. But I want you to focus on, maybe some words that we don’t pay enough attention to.

The Sacrificial Nature of the Eucharist

Jesus indeed says, “This is My body,” but then He adds, “given up for you.” “This is My blood, shed for you.” What becomes really present in the Eucharist, everybody, not just the body and blood of Jesus, sort of dumbly and objectively there. What becomes really present is Jesus’ body given.

Jesus’ blood poured out. When we, therefore, consume the Eucharist, we become what we eat, right? We become what we eat. We become conformed to a love unto death.

Christianity’s Purpose

We become a body given for others. We become blood poured out on behalf of others. It’s a challenging idea, but I’ll offer it to all of you tonight. Your Christianity is not for you. Christianity is not a self-help program. It’s something designed just to make us feel better about ourselves.

Your Christianity is for the world. Jesus said, “You’re the light of the world. If you put your light under a bushel basket, it does no good. You are the salt of the earth.” Therefore, you’re meant to enhance what’s good in the world. You’re meant to put to death what’s bad in the world.

The Church’s Mission

But if salt loses its savor, who can make it salty again? You see the idea. Our Christianity is not for us. We eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus which have been offered for the world.

Think here, everybody, of dear Pope Francis. The church that goes out from itself. Yes. Yes. The Eucharist is not for us as a little private possession. It’s meant to conform us to Christ who gives His body, blood, soul, and divinity for the world.

The Light of Nations

It’s Vatican II, the great conciliar document, Lumen Gentium, the light of the nations. Who’s the light? We’re meant to be the bearers of that light to the Gentes, to the world. That’s the whole ecclesiology of the church.

That’s what animated John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Pope Francis. The same idea. The church that goes out from itself. As I look at this great throng in this room, gosh, it lifts up my heart.

The energy in this room could change our country. It’s true, isn’t it? It’s true. Do you know how many Catholics there are in America? Roughly 70 million.

We’re just shy of a quarter of the population. Think for one second. Look around this room as you do so. Think, what if 70 million Catholics, starting tonight, began to live their faith radically and dramatically?

The Obligation of the Laity

Became body offered, blood poured out. We would change the country. You know, since Vatican II, appropriately, there’s been a lot of talk about the rights and privileges and prerogatives of the laity. And that’s right.

Overcoming a sort of cramped clericalism and inviting the laity and all of that. I love it. I love it. I’m totally for it. But can I add maybe a word of challenge that’s not been as stressed?

Along with the rights and prerogatives of the laity is the obligation of the laity. You know what Vatican II wanted? Vatican II wanted great Catholic lawyers. Great Catholic politicians. Great Catholic writers. Great Catholic journalists.

Great Catholic parents. Great Catholic educators. Going out into the world. Vatican II said the seculum, the secular order, that’s your space.

The Fire of Faith

Move into it with panache and energy and intelligence and enthusiasm and become body given, blood poured out. We’d set the country on fire. Look at us. You’ve got rights and privileges for sure.

And you’ve got this great sacred obligation. You know, Dorothy Day has long been a hero of mine. And back in the 1950s, Dorothy Day complained about something.

Two-Tiered Spirituality

She said there was a kind of two-tiered spirituality in the Catholic Church. There was a spirituality of the commandments. That was for the laity. And it meant, you know, follow the basic ten commandments.

And that’s all we can really expect of you. And then there was what she called a council spirituality for the clergy and the religious and so on. What’s that? What’s that?

The Evangelical Councils

Well, the evangelical councils. Poverty, chastity, obedience. So beyond the commandments, that’s for the ordinary people, there’s a kind of, you know, for the spiritual athletes, they’ve got poverty, chastity, obedience.

Dorothy Day hated that. She hated that distinction. She loved clergy and she loved the consecrated religious. And she knew they lived those things out in a distinctive way.

But she also knew, no, no, there’s not a two-tiered spirituality in the Church. The laity, too, are called to heroic sanctity. The laity, too, are called to poverty, chastity, and obedience. So everybody, in the brief time I’ve got, I just want to say something very simple about each one of those.

Because I think in this living out of a council spirituality, we’ll see more concretely what it means to be Christ in the world. So first, poverty. The laity are not called to the poverty, let’s say, of a Franciscan friar or a Trappist monk.

Poverty and Detachment

That’s a particular religious form of poverty. If someone’s whistling for that, all right, good. But, listen to me now. All the laity are indeed called to the evangelical council of poverty.

In what sense? In the sense of what all the spiritual masters call detachment. Detachment. Jesus said, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and the rest will be added unto you.”

The Kingdom of God

What did He mean? He meant a clarity about what you want and what you stand for. The Kingdom of God. And the rest of life will kind of take care of itself in relation to that desire.

Saint Augustine said, “Love God, then love everything else for the sake of God.” Then you’ll be okay. An image that I’ve shared, if people have followed my work, they know this, but it’s been so helpful to me over the years.

The image of the wheel of fortune. Not Vanna White, but long before Vanna White. In the Middle Ages, there was this great symbol. The wheel of fortune that turns inevitably. At the top is a king. He’s got everything. And then the wheel turns and you have a king having lost his crown.

And then at the very bottom you’ve got a pauper. He’s got nothing. And then the wheel turns up this way and you’ve got someone climbing up to the top.

Think wealth, pleasure, honor, power, all the things the world tells us will make us happy. Oh, just fill your life up with enough of those, you’ll be happy. That’s living on the rim of the wheel, am I right?

Living in Anxiety and Addiction

That wheel that turns. When you’re on top of the wheel of fortune, you’ve got everything you’ve ever wanted. All the wealth and power, fame you’ve ever wanted.

The one thing you know is it’s going to change. You’re going to lose it. And someone who’s seeking fame, he’s going to try to knock you out of that position. To live on the ever-changing rim of the wheel is to live in anxiety and addiction. Now, sound familiar? Fellow sinners in this room, all of us ride the wheel of fortune to varying degrees.

Spending our lives running after wealth, pleasure, honor, and power. The spiritual masters say, don’t live on the rim. Live in the center of the wheel.

Christ: The Unchanging Center

In the center is a depiction of Christ. The same yesterday, today, and forever. Christ who links us to the eternity of God.

Live in Him. And then you can watch as the wheel turns. I’m rich, I’m poor, I’m formerly rich, I’m getting richer. The wheel changes, but I’m not living there. See, to live in that space is to live in the space of detachment.

Living in the Center

Now listen, rim of the wheel, I’m caught in anxiety and addiction. I’m obsessed with the worldly goods. And therefore, grace can’t flow through me. Fellow sinners, we waste so much of our lives chasing after these worldly goods that will not satisfy us.

But if we live in Christ, we live in the center of the wheel, detached from the goods of the world, then God can work through us. Grace can flow through us into the world. And that’s the poverty, if you want, that all of you are called to. That’s the poverty that will indeed change the world.

Pope Leo XIII on Poverty

Can I give you one little thing from Pope Leo XIII? This is from Rerum Novarum, you know, the document that founded the church’s social teaching tradition. He said this, “When the demands of necessity and propriety in your life have been met, everything else you own belongs to the poor.” Now can I suggest to you, that’ll change your life if you let that sink in.

Again, when the demands of necessity and propriety in your life have been met. So think now in terms of wealth, pleasure, honor, power, when you’ve got enough of those things to, you know, alright, you have enough to live, well then everything else belongs to the poor. You can’t say that if you’re living on the rim of the wheel. You can only say that when you’re living in the center, in the place of detachment.

Chastity: A Universal Call

Okay, so that’s poverty. Secondly, chastity. Now there’s celibate chastity, which is lived by religious and by priests. And people often just conflate those two things, celibacy and chastity.

But chastity is a much more general term. It means living one’s sexual life in a morally and spiritually responsible way. It means sexual uprightness. Living your sexuality in a morally and spiritually upright way.

The Church’s Sexual Teaching

Everybody is called to that. Let me put it this way. Yes, you may applaud for chastity. The church gets such a bad rap on this, I know.

And listen to the disaffiliating young people when they tell you why they’re disaffiliating. How often they say something like the church’s sexual teaching, you know, it’s just not fair and it’s too puritanical and they’re always wagging their finger. This is the church’s sexual teaching: To bring one’s sexuality completely under the aegis of love.

Let me say that again. To bring the whole of one’s sexuality under the aegis of love. What’s love? Not a feeling. Love, Thomas Aquinas said, is willing the good of the other. That’s the whole Christian life. Love one another, right? So now your sexuality lived in such a way that it’s not primarily for your good, but for the good of the other.

The Church’s Celebration of Sexuality

That your sexuality becomes an act of love. Can you see now, everybody, all of the church’s teaching in the sexual arena has nothing to do with puritanism. No, the church celebrates sexuality. We’re not a dualistic puritanical system.

But we want to bring the whole of life, including your sexuality, under the aegis of love. Think about, you know, some of the classical issues. Abortion and sexual abuse, the objectification of both men and women, adultery, the hookup culture, pornography. What do all those things have in common?

Sex Divorced from Love

None of them falls under the aegis of love. All of those are, to varying degrees, a sexuality turned in on itself. Church isn’t against sex. It’s against a sex divorced from love.

Let me give you a quote from St. Pope Paul VI. This is from the much maligned Humanae Vitae. And Pope Paul here is talking, indeed, about contraception.

Humanae Vitae on Contraception

But I want you to hear the principle that he articulates. It’s exactly what I’ve been talking about. This is from Humanae Vitae: “Another effect that gives cause for alarm in this area of contraception is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman and disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.”

Not bad. That’s the principle, everybody. That’s the principle. John Paul II said the same thing. He said never treat another human being as merely a means and not as an end in him or herself.

The Power of Chastity

Again, reducing her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires. That’s what the church is against. Chastity means living your sexual life in opposition to that. That all of it becomes a gift of love.

Now, listen to me. What would happen, fellow Catholics here, if beginning tonight, 70 million Catholics decided to live according to chastity? What would happen? Abortion, sexual abuse, pornography, the hookup culture, objectification of men and women, all of that would be attacked.

The Universal Call to Holiness

All of that would be undermined. You know, if we wring our hands at our wicked, fallen society, and it is in many ways, but do we turn the blame on ourselves that 70 million of us have not lived according to this great evangelical counsel? Oh, that’s for the clergy. No, says Dorothy Day.

No, say I tonight. That’s for everybody. Poverty and chastity. Just one more, then I’ll stop.

Obedience: The Third Counsel

Poverty, chastity, and obedience. Maybe the most important. Talk to priests, they’ll often tell you, you know, of the vows they take or the promises. The toughest one is obedience.

I remember years ago when Cardinal George, who was my great mentor and hero, appointed me as rector of Mundelein Seminary. It was maybe a month later. Hey, Mundelein. Maybe a month later, and there was a big fundraiser, and a lot of the wealthy people were there, and the cardinal was there wearing his cassock like this and his red cape and everything.

A Lesson in Obedience

Well, up to me comes a lady, and she was just indignant. And she said, “Father Barron, this is the dumbest appointment I’ve ever heard. You have this ministry, Word on Fire, that’s going out around the country, and you’re doing your evangelical work, and now they got you out to that little seminary pushing papers around. I think you being a rector is the dumbest decision ever made.”

And I said to her, “There’s a little man in a red cape in the next room that can answer all your questions.” Like, lady, I didn’t decide this. Well, okay, that’s priestly obedience, when you really hand your life over to your superior. When I was ordained, I put my hands in the hands of Cardinal Bernardin, and I said I promise obedience to you and your successors.

Obedience for the Laity

Okay, that’s priestly obedience. But, laity, laity, you need to practice the evangelical counsel of obedience too. In what sense? What voice do you listen to?

There are so many voices. They’re in songs, they’re in movies, they’re in politician speeches, they’re in the culture. What are they saying? Wealth, pleasure, power, honor.

The Voice of God

Once you see those big four, I learned them from Thomas Aquinas, once you see those, you see them everywhere. That’s what all the voices are telling you, how to get more and more and more of those things. Do you listen? Obedire, right, means to listen, obedience.

Do you listen to those? Or do you listen to a higher voice? That’s the whole Bible in a way, everybody. It’s the whole Bible.

Biblical Examples of Obedience

Think of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and Joshua and Peter and Paul and Isaiah and Jeremiah. What do they all have in common? They heard the hubbub of voices around them, for sure. But then they also heard that tiny whispering voice, that higher voice, the voice of God.

What is that voice? The one that tells you, don’t seek after these worldly goods, but do the right thing. Don’t seek after what the world tells you, but be a good person. Don’t worry about wealth, pleasure, power, honor.

The Importance of Listening to God

Rather, do what God wants you to do. Especially young people here, listen to me, that’s all that matters. Everything else in your life is a footnote. What matters is, which voice do you listen to?

Obedience. Obedire. A great modern telling of this biblical story is one of my favorite movies, Field of Dreams. Do you remember in Field of Dreams when he hears this…

Field of Dreams as a Metaphor

Iowans are probably cheering for that, huh? I don’t know. My diocese is just north of Iowa, my Winona Rochester diocese. But he’s going about his business, and he hears this strange, tiny whispering voice.

“If you build it, he will come.” And despite the opprobrium of his neighbors, despite the rejection of his family, he listens to that voice. He builds that baseball field, which becomes a conduit to a higher world, connects him to past and future, connects him to the sacred. There’s the metaphor, everybody.

The Culture of Self-Invention

What are you listening to? Which voice are you following? You know what the biggest problem is today, I think, in our culture? It’s what I call the culture of self-invention.

It’s rampant everywhere. What I mean is, hey, I decide who I am. I decide the meaning of my life. I decide what it’s all about. Don’t you tell me. No authority tells me. I decide. Yes, even my gender I’ll decide.

The self-invention culture is repugnant to what I’m talking about and what the Bible’s talking about. We hear the voice of God. God tells us who we should be, how we should live. Which voice do you follow?

Ego Drama vs. Theodrama

Everything else will be a footnote. I’ve shared before Hans Urs von Balthasar’s great distinction between the ego drama and the theodrama. The ego drama, that’s the one I’m writing, I’m directing, I’m producing it, and I’m the star, right? The Bishop Barron story, now on the road in Indianapolis.

That’s the ego drama. Bore me to death with the ego drama. Bore me to death with that. What’s the theodrama?

Finding Holiness in Obedience

The drama that God’s writing, God’s producing, God’s directing, and He’s got a role for you that might be nothing in the eyes of the world, but who cares? Whom do you listen to? Which voice? The laity are called to be obedient in this radical spiritual sense.

And that’s how you find your holiness. Just a last thought. Go to the very last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation. The heavenly Jerusalem comes down, representing the culmination of Revelation.

The Heavenly Jerusalem

The world being now what God wants it to be, the shining city. And curiously, in that heavenly Jerusalem, there’s no temple. And you think how strange that is. The temple was why people came to Jerusalem.

There’s no temple in the heavenly Jerusalem because, listen, the whole city has become a temple. Think of a city with educational institutions and businesses and sports arenas like this and symphony theaters and all the activity of a city. What if every bit of it was turned to the praise of God? What if every bit of it found its fulfillment in God?

The Mission of the Laity

Well then, the whole city would be a temple. There’s the job of the laity, everybody, and I’ll close with this. Your job, bring the lumen to the gentes. Bring the light of Christ out into the secular world.

This great revival will have been a failure if we don’t change our society, if we don’t stream forth from this place with the light of Christ. Become the people you’re meant to be. And Catherine of Siena said it: “Become the people God wants you to be, and you will set the world on fire.”

God bless you all.

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