Oct. 5, 2016

“Everyone in this room is called, summoned, and sent by Christ!”  Thus keynoter Bishop Robert Barron encouraged INSPIRE participants to understand and embrace the universal call to holiness.

“Vatican II reminded us that we are all grafted onto Jesus Christ, the new Adam, who is Priest, Prophet, and King. It is in the exercise of these offices that we find our holiness and mission,” the Bishop explained.

“We see the first exercise of priesthood in Adam, before the Fall,” he said. “There is a great ‘de-throning’ in the Book of Genesis; all that God has made is good, but it is NOT God.

“This reminds us that we do not worship creatures. Instead we are to worship the one true God, leading creation in a great chorus of praise,” he said.

Bishop Barron noted that the word “adoration” implies being “mouth to mouth with God,” being aligned with him. “Orthodoxy means right belief, but also ‘right praise.’

“God does not need our praise,” Bishop Barron said.  “We need to praise God because in the great act of praising him we become rightly ordered; we become aligned with God, and everything else falls into harmony.

“We must ask ourselves what we truly value: wealth, honor, power, or pleasure? When we give the highest value to these things, we offer ‘bad praise’; we fall apart and cause disintegration in ourselves and others,” he said. “Yet when we give God right praise, all is peace around us.

“Jesus the high priest gives his Father right praise as he suffers on the Cross and brings the world back into harmony with God,” Bishop Barron said. “But in a world gone wrong through sin, there is no communion without sacrifice; to get back on line hurts. This is why priesthood is associated with sacrifice.”

All the baptized, Bishop Barron reminded, “are configured unto Christ Jesus and so are meant to be priests, participating in his sacrifice. 

“This happens at Mass, the sacrifice of Calvary that is the fulfillment of what it means to be human,” he said. “Eighty percent of U.S.  Catholics stay away from Mass, the source and summit of the Christian life.  This is bad for all of us, since our mission to give right praise to God is not private but on behalf of the world.”

The prophetic role of the baptized emerges in Genesis, where all created things have come forth from God endowed with intrinsic intelligibility.

“God brings all the animals to Adam to name,” Bishop Barron said. “This discovery, this naming, is part of the glory of humanity. Sin, however, removes this prophetic function; not content to name things, we think we can choose/decide what they mean.

“The idea that ‘human beings decide for themselves the meaning of reality and of the universe’ is now enshrined in law,” he said. ”This pervasive mindset reverses the cataloging task of Adam, of reading intelligently the meaning that God has written into creation.”

Jesus, says Bishop Barron, is the Prophet of prophets. Against disordered pursuit of wealth, honor, power, and pleasure, Jesus proposes the Beatitudes.

As the Bishop explains, “How lucky you are if you are not mouth to mouth with the material goods of this world, since they are not worthy of our worship and can never bring us happiness. How happy you are if you do not turn these things into gods.

“As Aquinas taught, ‘Despise what Jesus despised on the cross and love what Jesus loved on the cross and you will be happy,’” the bishop said.

“Yet how many of us who are baptized are lifting our prophetic voice to speak up for the beautiful intelligibility placed in creation by God?”

“Like Adam, we are also kings. Adam’s job was to defend the garden from intruders—but then, to go out and bring the peace and order of Eden to all the world,”Bishop Barron said.

“The Old Testament reveals the vocation and purpose of Israel,” he said. “As priestly people, they offered the right praise of God; as prophetic people, they drew the whole world into that praise; as kingly people, they defended God’s order and went on the march to bring harmony and peace to the world.”

“Having been baptized into Christ, we are likewise conformed to his kingship: “reigning on the cross, he is priest and prophet carrying a crown,” Bishop Barron said. “On the cross he does battle with cruelty, stupidity, hatred, injustice and scapegoating—by swallowing them up in the bath of divine mercy. 

“Our task is to announce this new king to everyone in the world,” Bishop Barron said. “Though it can be awkward, even dangerous, to bring our faith into public places, that is what kings do; they go on the march.

“Evangelization is the bold proclamation that Jesus is Lord, the bishop concluded. “Bishops, priests, religious, and faithful laity all come together as baptized people, configured unto him who is Priest, Prophet, and King.”