Homily and History

I just finished watching Bishop Robert Barron’s most recent Sunday homily. It usually takes me a few days after they’re posted on YouTube to find the time to watch them. I need to really focus, listen, and digest. There’s always much to contemplate!

I have included the link so you can watch it if you missed it on Sunday. Or if you didn’t even know this was a thing! During the pandemic lockdown my husband and I would participate in Sunday Mass by watching Bishop B’s livestream. After a while he stopped streaming the whole Mass but continued to share a homily each week! For which many thousands are very grateful. Me included!

I’m sharing last Sunday’s for a couple of reasons. The first is because the good bishop is extra animated this week! He’s actually entertaining to watch. His homilies are always edifying and often inspiring, and certainly encouraging. But this one is on a new level.

Another reason I’m sharing is because one of the points he made about the historical reality of who normally gets their stories told reminded me of something my Cultural Theology professor once told our class.

He said that, for many centuries, only the victors got to tell the story. And not only they; historians only wanted to tell the victor’s story, as well. Sadly, that’s the way things used to be. In our modern age, historians attempt to tell the stories of the oppressed and those who suffered at the hands of the “winners” of wars and other events of the day.

And that’s another reason the telling of the story of Jesus is so amazing, all four times it’s told. For all the world it seems that Jesus failed in His mission. But the “surprise ending” in the Gospel accounts reveal that Love wins. For all of us.

For these four Gospel histories to survive, even before they were written down, let alone after, is something unique. Why would the authors want to share such a story, including the betrayal, passion and death of a humble man few people had ever heard of? Because, as we read we learn that Jesus is more than a man. He is the Victor. And not just for those people in that time, but for all people for all time.

He makes the remarkable assertion, unbelievable to many, that He is the Son of God, so those authors and the people who believed, knew that Jesus’ story had to be told. Warts and all, the bad and the oh so very good.

The Gospel accounts are history, yes. And so much more. So listen to Bishop Barron and then read the Gospel of Luke for starters, if you never have. Read it again, if you have. Pray over it. And believe. Jesus is Lord! He has the victory!

https://youtu.be/CIVvpFojbzk