Bishop Barron: Catholics can set world on fire

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald
Bishop Robert Barron, often referred to as the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen of modern times, peered out at the NFL-sized crowd gathered inside Lucas Oil Stadium on the final night of the National Eucharistic Congress July 20 and gave a storyteller’s opinion of what he was witnessing.
“I’ve been a priest for 38 years, and these days constitute one of the great moments of my priesthood, I really mean it,” Bishop Barron said, overwhelmed by the 50,000 who attended the five-day conference, the first of its kind since 1941, when then-Father Sheen was just 46.
Bishop Barron, the bishop of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, founded the Word of Fire film, book and podcasting ministry that has elevated his stature as a bishop who speaks from a pulpit capable of both rebutting anti-Catholic bullies and inflaming hearts about the beauty of the Catholic faith.
Bishop Barron had just finished walking in the mile-long eucharistic procession through the streets of Indianapolis, and he was overwhelmed by the response of Catholics from across the country to participate in what essentially had become the largest church retreat in decades.
“To see that procession today – the enthusiasm and the deep devotion of all of you and then to see this gathering – how could you deny that the Holy Spirit is here among us.”
As a theologian and seminary rector, Bishop Barron loves offering nuggets of wisdom to explain Catholic belief. He brought up an observation from Father Ronald Knox, a Catholic apologist from England who died in 1957.
“It’s something that’s always stayed with me ever since I read it,” Bishop Barron said. “Knox said that almost all of Jesus’ commands have been dishonored – or at least honored in the breach. You know, ‘Love your enemies and bless those who curse you and don’t judge.’ All the moral demands of Jesus, time and again, we disregard those.
“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, despite all of that, somehow we’ve known 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. ‘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, the theology of the real presence.”
The Eucharist is “not just the body and blood of Jesus, sort of dumbly and objectively there,” he said.
“What becomes really present is Jesus’ body given, Jesus’ blood poured out. When we consume the Eucharist, we become what we eat. We become conformed to a love unto death. We become a body given for others. We become blood poured out on behalf of others.”
Bishop Barron said the Catholic faith goes far beyond constituting a personal, “self-help program, something designed just to make us feel better about ourselves.”
“Your Christianity is for the world,” he said. “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 Eucharist is not for us this little, private possession. It’s meant to conform us to Christ, who gives us body, blood, soul and divinity for the world.”
“The energy in this room – I mean it, everybody – could change our country. How many Catholics are there in America? Roughly 70 million. We’re just shy of a quarter of the population. Look around this room. What if 70 million Catholics, starting tonight, began to live their faith radically and dramatically, became ‘body offered, blood poured out.’ We would change the country.”
Bishop Barron cited the Vatican II document, “Lumen Gentium,” that challenged the laity to step up and bring their Catholic faith into the public square.
“Along with the rights and prerogatives of the laity is the obligation of the laity,” he said. “What Vatican II wanted was great Catholic lawyers, great Catholic politicians, great Catholic writers, great Catholic journalists, great Catholic parents, great Catholic educators going out into the world, into the secular order. That’s our space. Move into it with panache and energy and intelligence and enthusiasm and become body given, blood poured out. We’d set our country on fire.”
Bishop Barron also spoke to young people in the audience about the importance of listening to the “right” voices.
“There are so many voices – in songs, there are movies, politician speeches, there is the culture,” he said. "What are they saying? Wealth, power, pleasure, honor. Once you see those big four – I learned that from Thomas Aquinas – you see them everywhere. Do you listen to those, or do you listen to a higher voice? … Do the right thing. Don’t seek out what the world tells you. Be a good person. Don’t worry about wealth. What matters is the voice you listen to.”
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