Proclaiming and Encountering Christ in the 21st Century: Bishop Barron at  

Did you come back home?

Yes!

Amen!

Agreed

Catholicism is an apostate false religion built on man's views not Gods. Biola has gone woke and apostate by indoctrinating their students in CRT and Catholic mysticism.

Appreciate you and your kindness, Ben. God bless you.

Amen to that!! Thanks and Praise to the Lord God!

Preach!

Completely agree except for the last part. God is not "the most powerful force in the universe" as that implies some kind of competition between God and other forces. God is the ground of all being and has complete sovereignty over all creation.

Thank you for those words.

Amen!

Let the people see joy in us and ve kind to one another.

Very wisely 👌 said Diane 👏 ! You have just described in detail the spiritual emptiness in my family 👪 ! Praying 🙏 for God's grace 🙏 ❤ !

Yes it is. Packed with much needed contemporary needs and practical and up-to-date reflections. Some accurate observations and definitely acceptable reflections/solutions.

I came home to my Catholic faith 22 years ago after a 33 year lapse into evangelicalism , nondenominationalism and disillusioned agnosticism. May I suggest that you find an older church or better yet a Cathedral or even a monastery built before 1950 or so. Talk to a good and holy priest first if you can they’re out there. As you enter the Church be prepared to feel God’s presence there. The feeling is palpable for many who believe. Jesus is truly present body blood soul and divinity inside the blessed Tabernacle at the center of the altar most likely under a large crucifix suspended above. There will also be a small glowing red candle which shows the faithful that God is present in consecrated hosts and everywhere as a focus for adoration and prayer. Old church’s can have elaborate altars, columns, stained glass windows and confessionals which heighten the sensory experience. Just bask in the mercy and love of Jesus. There may be many beautiful statues of our Lady, the Saints or martyrs who remind us of our connection to the mystical body of Christ, who we are and where we came from as Christians all they way back 2000 years through time when Jesus walked and taught and established his church and where we are going when we enter into our glory to be with Jesus. With a little luck the smell of incense will be lingering in the air and there will be numerous lit candles the faithful Catholic offering prayers up to heaven. Try if you can to visit during a Sunday or even a weekday mass. Sit back and just take in the beauty and majesty as heaven and earth touch each other as a great cloud of witnesses worshiping together in the Divine Liturgy and Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Your first visit to a beautiful Catholic Church can be a memorable experience if you leave any doubts you have at the door. Let Jesus envelop you in his love and mercy. By the way in the greater San Francisco Bay Area and California in general there are many Churches available. Some of the mission churches founded by St. Junipero Serra have active parishes in them and are great places to visit. The old Cathedral in San Francisco is amazing. Good luck. God bless you.

I am a lifetime practicing Catholic now well into my 60s, but I understand what you're saying. I attend Mass faithfully on Sundays and holy days and wouldn't think of not going - I WANT to spend time dedicated in worship of our Lord. But yet...there is a sometimes palpable sad beige-ness present in the way the readings are proclaimed without enthusiasm or apparent understanding, in weak homilies, in uninspired adult education opportunities and sparse attendance even at the good ones, etc. I love the Lord and the church and will never stray, though I sometimes feel we have taken the greatest news ever told in the history of the world and made it--of all things!--BORING. 😢 The only suggestion I have is to keep trying different parishes until, with God's leading you via prayer, you find the one that's right for you. It's out there - don't give up! God has ignited your interest in the Catholic Church for a reason. And keep listening to Bishop Barron and other strong Catholic teachers. God bless you!

Amen!

Many generations of Catholic children grew up with a crucifix on every wall of their home, including hanging over the bed. In this age of ubiquitous news coverage, most all children will be exposed to terrible stories at an early age -- violent stories that do not end in resurrection. Tell the story with gentleness and confident composure. Read to your child from Holy Scripture, and Be Not Afraid. The Holy Spirit will give you the words to help him understand, without fear.

Please select a few beautiful colorful illustrated children’s books about the Catholic Faith, and read to your little one every day. Be appropriate to the age and innocence. As a foundation always remember you are teaching about someone Good, and that He cared for others.

At the tender age of Four your grandson may have experienced the death of a pet, so as long as he understands that pets die, and that crucially when people get very old, people die too. Then you could tell your sweet grandson that when Adam and eve ate that apple and disobeyed Gods command in the garden of Eden - THEY HAD TO LEAVE THE GARDEN - INOTHER WORDS THEY LEFT GOD`S FRIENDSHIP as they preferred themselves; and the very special spirit that made them holy left them. God then put everything in motion for his Son to bring the friendship of God and man back together by dying for every human being - as the gates of Heaven closed when Adam and eve ate that apple and when God`s only begotten son Jesus Christ the promised messiah died - The gates of heaven opened as despite being a very heart breaking dying it was the most special dying there could ever be. You may not need to go into the great detail of Jesus Christ our Lords suffering on that wonderous day with your sweet grandson being ever so young - you can go into those details when you feel he is old enough for that. There will very likely be a suitable Children's book that will explain everything to your precious grandson.

Thank you for your helpful responses.

Others have provided wonderful suggestions for how to help you explain things to your grandson, so I will not address that. But I am intrigued by your statements, "I am beyond sad that this happened to Him..." and "...what THEY did to Him." What I'm about to say, I say with Christian love: is it possible that perhaps the reason you're struggling to explain God's plan of salvation to your grandson is that you don't fully understand it yourself? Jesus came willingly to earth to DIE for OUR sins that had separated us from God. It was the plan of His Father and he obeyed at great human cost to Himself out of love for us...yes, for us sinners! So what THEY did to Christ 2000 years ago on the cross is what WE --ALL of sinful humanity, past, present, and future--did to him, i.e. OUR sins put Christ on the cross; we are ALL responsible for his horrific crucifixion. Without Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, we would still be eternally separated from God. So although Christ died from an earthly perspective, He LIVES for all eternity, and therefore so will we who believe in Him. That's the fantastic resurrection part of the story that we can't overlook, i.e. the darkness of Good Friday was totally obliterated by the brilliance of the resurrection on that first Easter! Without the crucifixion--Christ's sacrifice for our sins--there would be no resurrection. So yes, the crucifixion can make us sad when we think about the awful torture Jesus endured, but it's not the end of the story - far from it: our hope as Christians forever lies in Christ's resurrection! God bless you.

Something that resonated with me years ago was, "If we could totally understand it, it wouldn't be faith." Or another way to say it is from the scriptures (Hebrews 11:1): "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Outside of faith, in the secular world, there are many things we don't fully understand but accept anyway, e.g. good and bad bacteria that we can't easily see but we know can both help us and kill us; truths about the universe that we learn more about every day; etc. I'm sure you can think of many more examples yourself. The point being that we can never know everything; some things we must accept by faith...whether faith in science or faith in God, they're really not so very different.

I think they were laughing at the idea of reading Aquinas' massive Summa, not John 6.

And perhaps evangelizing to Protestants to read about/study the Real Presence Eucharist

John 6 is the main biblical text used to explain Jesus' real presence in the eucharist. He was basically implying that you don't need to read anything other than the bible to explain the eucharist. The audience is familiar with the biblical argument and laughed.

@@LuisRodriguez-tr4pm Yes, thanks.

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Execellent Bishop Barron God bless you in your ministry