Bishop Barron's Sunday sermon on the calling of the Twelve Apostles and what Jesus saw in each of them
Bishop Robert Barron delivers a Sunday sermon reflecting on the flawed yet gifted apostles Jesus chose to found the Church.
Summary
Preaching on the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, the bishop opens by welcoming the return to ordinary time after the great feasts of Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Holy Trinity, and Corpus Christi. He focuses on the Gospel passage in which Jesus summons the Twelve Apostles and sends them out with his authority, using this as a lens to examine the nature of the Church itself. His central argument is twofold: that Jesus knowingly chose deeply flawed individuals to lead his Church, and that he simultaneously saw genuine gifts in each of them — gifts that have echoed through the Church across the centuries.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
The Return to Ordinary Time and the Sending of the Twelve
Bishop Barron: Peace be with you. Friends, we come now to the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time. I always find a certain sigh of relief with this. I love all the high holy days — with Lent and Easter and Pentecost and Holy Trinity and Corpus Christi, we have this whole series of great feasts — and then we turn back to Ordinary Time, and I always do so with a certain sense of: all right, good. We're back to basics again, back to ordinary things.
I think it's appropriate that the Gospel for this return to Ordinary Time is about Jesus sending the Twelve on a mission. Whenever you hear "Jesus and the Twelve," "Jesus and the apostles," that's the Church — not the Church in the sense of the Vatican and dioceses and all that, those are later developments, but we can see the Church in seminal form in these scenes. I think what we're meant to do is reflect upon the nature of the Church in its different dimensions, which is on display in these stories.
It says Jesus summoned the Twelve disciples — of course, the Twelve tribes of Israel — and he gave them authority. Well, there's the basic structure right there: Jesus, the Son of God, gathers around himself these Twelve. He sends them — "apostle" means "to send" — so the apostles are sent, and they're equipped with his authority to continue his work. I'm a bishop. We say in the Church that bishops are successors of the apostles. Priests are ordained by bishops to share in the work of a bishop. So in a way, the whole authority structure of the Church is on display right here: Jesus empowering his apostles, who then in turn will empower people to help them, who will then do the work of the Lord in the world. It's the Church in seminal form.
Who Jesus Chose — and Why It Matters
Now, whom does he call? That's what I want to focus on. He calls this interesting group of people: Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew, James and his brother John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew the tax collector, Simon the Zealot, Judas Iscariot, and so on.
I know this part of my sermon you've probably heard a thousand times, but I'll do it one more time because it's important to understand the Church. Was Jesus choosing clearly the best and brightest people in the society of his time? Well, no. He wasn't going to the best educated, the most politically influential, the most culturally astute. No — they're mostly fairly ordinary people. Moreover, these are all compromised characters, and it's a beautiful feature of the New Testament that it doesn't cover that up in any way. We are perfectly aware of the limitations.
Let me give you some examples. Simon called Peter — who, at the moment of truth, three times, again and again, denies that he even knows Jesus. A terrible, terrible lapse. A terrible betrayal of the Lord. A deeply flawed character. James and John — what do we hear about them? At one point their mother comes to Jesus saying, "Hey, put these two sons of mine at your right and left when you come into your glory." Ambition. Does ambition beset leaders of the Church? Yes, up and down the ages. Sometimes church leaders, like Peter, can lose their connection to Jesus completely. Other times they're compromised by their ambition for high office and position.
What else do we hear? Matthew the tax collector — hated collaborator with the Romans, someone who was abusing his own people. A deeply flawed character. Thomas — "Hey, we've seen the risen Lord." "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll believe it when I can put my finger in his wounds and my hand in his side. I doubt all that." Is church leadership at times beset by a preoccupation with money? That might be Matthew's problem. Sometimes beset by a skeptical doubting of the faith? Yes. Simon from Cana — he's called here, but he's also called Simon the Zealot in other Gospels. The Zealots, of course, were a violent group trying to overthrow the Romans through violent revolution. Religious extremism sometimes leading to violence — have we seen that in the Church and in its leadership over the centuries? You don't have to look too hard to find that.
So these are the people Jesus chooses. I think it's very important that we follow the Gospel here in not blinding ourselves to this. From the beginning, the Lord is aware of the limitations of the people he's choosing to lead the Church, and so it's gone up and down the ages. We have to remember, as Paul said, we hold the treasure in earthen vessels. That treasure is Christ and his authority. The vessels are people just like them and their successors up and down the ages.
What Jesus Saw in Each Apostle
Now, you might say: "Okay, I've heard that sermon, and I know about the flawed character of the leadership — but is there another side to it?" And the answer is certainly yes.
I tell the men that I ordain: Christ chose you to be a priest. If you put the stress on "Christ choosing," that's very important — that's the grace side of it. It's not you chose me; I chose you. The grace comes first. Christ does the choosing. But then I say to them: but he chose you. He did the choosing, yes, but he chose you. In other words, there's something in you that he noticed, that he loved, that he reverenced, that he wanted to use for his purposes.
Is the same thing true here? Yes. Go back to Peter. He denied the Lord three times — yes. But did Jesus see something in Peter that was indispensable?
I'm dating myself here, but in Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth, which I always love, James Farentino was the actor who played Peter. People my age and older will remember him — he was in TV and movies in the 70s and 80s. I always love the way he played Peter. When Jesus first meets him, he's on his boat, yelling at his brother and his fellow fishermen, barking orders, losing his temper. And then they show the Lord, and he's smiling — certainly seeing the flaws in Peter, but at the same time very clearly admiring something in him.
What did he see in Peter? Obviously gifts of leadership, obviously a passion to get things done. Peter stands for office in the Church — practical leadership, the capacity to get things done. For much of my priesthood I was not involved in administration. I was a professor for most of my priesthood, so books and teaching and ideas and talks — that was my life. And then I was made rector of the seminary, then auxiliary bishop of the largest diocese in the country, and now I'm bishop of my own diocese. So I've been brought into the world of practical administration, and I have this renewed appreciation for people who know how to get things done. You might say, "Oh no, the Church isn't about that — the Church is about prayer and mysticism and theology." Well, yes, but someone's got to build the monasteries, someone's got to build the churches, someone's got to arrange the organisation. Did Jesus see in Peter these gifts of leadership that would have to be present in his Church? I think the answer is obviously yes.
How about John? Yes, an ambitious young man — that's certainly the flaw of John. But John is also the one who rested his head on the breast of the Lord at the Last Supper. John is the mystic, the one whom Jesus especially loved. John stands for prayer, contemplation, mysticism, liturgy — that beautiful side of the Church. Did Jesus see that in this young man? Did he see this capacity for spiritual engagement, and did he see that quality of John being passed down through the ages? Whenever you enter into the liturgy or the contemplative and prayerful life of the Church, it's the influence of John. Did he see that in him? I think clearly yes.
Matthew and Thomas — Matthew, who becomes an evangelist: if he was a tax collector, he was probably a well-organised person, probably educated, with the capacity to read and write, which was very rare in the ancient world. Did Jesus see that in him? He saw the flaws, of course, but did he see in Matthew this capacity for intellectual work and communication? I think so. How much of the life of the Church up and down the ages is all about communication, all about the propagating of the faith? Look at what I'm doing right now, with lights and cameras on me, and this sermon going out to hundreds of thousands. I'm a descendant of Matthew the Evangelist. That's what I'm trying to do, using the methods available to me now — I'm trying to evangelise. Did Jesus see in Matthew that dimension of the Church, echoing from the evangelists themselves up through Fulton Sheen? I think so.
How about Thomas, who's mentioned? Thomas the doubter — yes. Thomas who wouldn't accept it. Thomas of stubborn skepticism. Jesus saw that flaw in him for sure, and has that flaw beset the Church? Yes, it has. But at the same time, what did he see in Thomas? The intellectual life of the Church, spurred on by a restless curiosity. Maybe Peter wasn't interested in those high academic questions — probably not. He was a man of office and activity, let's get things done. Maybe John, the mystic, the person of prayer and contemplation, wasn't either. But the Church needed, up and down the ages, people like Thomas the Apostle to ask the skeptical questions, to be bothered enough to find a good answer. I can't help but think that my spiritual hero Thomas Aquinas is in many ways the spiritual son of Thomas the Apostle.
I know the image is a bit hackneyed, but it's one that's always helped me: the oyster finds inside itself an irritant — a piece of sand, a little grit — and therefore creates around it this protective shell, and we call that a pearl and find it magnificent and beautiful. What produces the great pearls of the Catholic intellectual tradition but these irritants inside the minds and souls of people like Thomas the Apostle and Thomas Aquinas and all the great intellectuals up and down the ages? Did Jesus see in Thomas that whole tradition? I think yes.
I'll do one more, and that's Simon from Cana — called here, but as I mentioned, Simon the Zealot. The negative side: yes, the Church beset by violence and extremism. But did Jesus also see in Simon the Zealot something of the energy, the passion, and the power the Church needs? Did he see the zealousness of Simon forming all of the life of the Church — so that in our practical leadership, in our contemplation, in our evangelisation, in our intellectual work, in all the dimensions of the Church, there ought to be something of the zealous spirit, the energy that carries us forward? Without Simon the Zealot, can you imagine Francis Xavier? Without Simon the Zealot, can you imagine Francis of Assisi? Without Simon the Zealot, can you imagine John Paul II? Whenever you see this energy and verve and zeal, that's the positive thing that Jesus saw in this man.
Finding Yourself Among the Apostles
So, everybody, spend a little time with these apostles whom Jesus gathered and then sent, because really all of us, baptised into Christ, are successors of these figures. Find yourself in one of these people — maybe in both the flaws and the virtues — but realise that as he chose them, he has chosen you.
God bless you.