The Peace of Christ – Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon

0:00 Peace be with you, friends, for this 27th Sunday of the year. I'm again going to skip the gospel. If you want to find something about the gospel, go back maybe three years ago. I probably preached on it. But there's something about Paul to the Philippians that kind of seduces me that whenever that reading comes up, I want to go back to it. I mentioned to you last week, the Church of Philippi is very important. The first church Paul establishes in Europe. So it's the mother church of all of European Christianity and hence of most of the Christianity in the world. a church that Paul had special affection for. Well, we read last week the magnificent, you know, canotic hymn, so-called, though he was in the form of God, he emptied himself, et cetera. Well, today is from chapter four, the final chapter. Paul is really saying goodbye to the community here. It's got some passages, though, of enormous spiritual significance. So I want to dwell on that just a bit.

0:52 Here's what he says now to his friends in Philippi. have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Now you say, okay, wait a minute. Have no anxiety at all. Well, heck, coming from somebody, Paul, who was shipwrecked many times, who was beaten within an inch of his life, who was threatened and harassed and persecuted and opposed, and who finally was arrested, dragged to Rome, and decapitated. Well, it's hard to imagine that man going through his life without any anxiety at all. That word anxiety from angustia in Latin, angst, you know, in German, it means the narrows. Like when you're between the rock and the hard place. If I do this, I'm in trouble. I do that. I'm in trouble and I'm stuck. That's what anxiety means is where it comes from.

1:53 Paul was never there. Well, I mean, clearly, yes, he was. So what's he talking about? How could he tell his people never have any anxiety, never worry about anything at all? Well, here's the clue. By prayer and with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. What's he talking about? not the elimination of fear and anxiety. That's never going to happen this side of the eschaton. I don't care who you are. You're living in this world. You're going to end up at times between the rock and the heart plays. I've explained to you before when I talk about that great image of the Wheel of Fortune from the medieval churches, that the wheel turns, and you're on top sometimes, you're down sometimes, you're going up sometimes, you're going down sometimes. and that's just the way it goes.

2:48 Life is like that. And at every point on the wheel, if you're successful, you're anxious about losing it. You're going down. Well, you're anxious because you're going down. You're at the bottom. You're anxious because I'm at the bottom. You're heading up. You're anxious because you might not make it. So wherever you are in life, you're in a place of anxiety. So in the great image of the Wheel of Fortune, at the center of the wheel is an image of Christ. And that's the idea.

3:17 Move from the rim to the center. Move, I'll shift metaphors here, from the relative surface of life to the depths. You know, here's like an ocean metaphor. I'm from Chicago, Lake Michigan, which is like an inland sea. On the surface, I mean, Lake Michigan would be roiled and waves crashing and white caps and all that. But go down, down, down to the depths of it, and you'll find great serenity and peace. Surface of the ocean can be a tumult. You go to the depth of the ocean, and it's a place of peace. That's what we're talking about. Make the transition in your consciousness, if you want, from surface to depth, from rim of the wheel to center of the wheel.

4:12 root your life in Christ who links you to the eternal power of God and listen now who's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do the storms on the surface go away? No. Does the wheel stop turning? No. That's life. It just is. But you're not living on rim or surface. You're operating out of that deeper place. And in that place, what do you find? And I'll use the great biblical term, shalom. When Jesus says shalom, right, peace. Peace. He's not talking about a life that's free of any anxiety or trouble. No, but about this rootedness in God that brings a serenity despite any and all angusiae, angst, anxiety. And see, a key here, everybody, is that word prayer.

5:15 Paul says by prayer you find this peace. What is prayer? Asking God for things. Yeah, that's okay. We're like children, and we do. We ask God for things. But I'm with Thomas Merton. To pray is to find that place in you where you are here and now being created by God. That means you've consciously moved to this deeper and more central place. And that's where you find peace. The surface doesn't go away. You still have these fears, yes, but you're not living in the midst of them. Or think now of the disciples in the boat, right, and the storm at sea. and then Jesus walking on the water is evocative of what Paul's talking about and what I'm trying to talk about.

6:09 Jesus walking on the water is that place of peace that conquers the storms or that other story about the storm at sea where Jesus, when the disciples are screaming in fear, he's asleep in the back of the boat. He's indifferent to them? No, no, he's evocative of this place of shalom that you can find only through deep prayer. You know, now go through the great spiritual tradition. They're all talking about this. This is Teresa of Avila's interior castle.

6:49 Do the threats cease all around the castle? No, but if you retreat into that castle, you can find safety. It's like a keep. It's like a place of refuge. Even as the battle rages around the castle, you're in this place of serenity and peace. That's Christ living in you.

7:15 It's John of the Cross's inner wine cellar. He said we all have an inner wine cellar where the spirits are kept. The trouble, he said, is we've lost the key. We don't know how to access that anymore. And so we live in anxiety and fear when, in fact, there is a place, I'm shifting metaphors again, but of intoxication, meaning I'm filled with the Holy Spirit.

7:42 Finding that inner wine cellar, that central place, the place in the depth, Christ living within me. See, they're all metaphors. They're all references to this same basic truth. And I think everybody, it's what the spiritual life's all about. You know what comes to mind here, too, is the great John Paul II. What was the motto of his papacy, be not afraid. He said it in his opening sermon when he was installed as pope. It echoed like a refrain throughout his public discourses and sermons. And here's what's interesting about that. Coming from somebody, Karol Wojtyla, born 1920, which meant he was born at a very unpropitious time. Because as he comes of age, sophomore year in college, the Nazis, the worst people in the 20th century, roll into his hometown,

8:48 decapitated Polish society, imprisoned the best and brightest, imposed this oppressive dictatorship. Karl Wojtyla making his way to the underground seminary of Cardinal Sapieha, literally underground. It was like in the basement of the Episcopal residence. Knowing that as he made his way to the seminary, he could be shot, coming back at the end of the day he could be shot, as some of his classmates were. Well, having endured that for years, then the Nazis finally kicked out, only to be replaced by the communists, who impose maybe slightly less brutal, but still deeply brutal, dictatorship. If anybody had a right to be afraid, if anyone knew the truth about anxiety, It was this kid.

9:42 Never denies that. Never denies that he endured that. But yet, when he becomes pope, he can say to all the world, don't be afraid. How could he say it? Oh, because he had confidence that the geopolitical situation would turn. No, no, no. Oh, because he had some sociological plan to improve the human. No, no, no. It's because he was rooted in Christ. it's because of the practices of prayer. Many, by the way, from the Carmelite tradition of John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, because he learned the ways of prayer as a young man, that he found this place of depth and centeredness and peace where he could say from his own inner peace to the world, do not be afraid.

10:34 That's what Paul's talking about here. have no anxiety at all. Live in the center. And now just as I close, go back as he goes on here. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Now, I know it's a lovely lyrical passage, but maybe it can sound like a banality. You know, like it's nice to be nice or it's, you know, good things are good. But there's a very important spiritual point being made here. So how do you find this place of peace, this central place of shalom where God dwells? Prayer indeed. But also by associating with those good, true, and beautiful things that are redolent of God.

11:35 Does that make sense? Anything that's good or true or beautiful is participating in God and therefore leads you back to God. So, Paul, what's true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, so just think for a minute, an elegantly formulated mathematical equation in its beauty and truth leads you to God. The musings of a real philosopher, A well-crafted short story, if you like literature. An authentic act of kindness that's morally beautiful. The heroic, you know, apostolic work of Mother Teresa's sisters. Oh, the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. A properly proportioned building. A handsome face smiling in friendliness.

12:29 An innocent child at play. You like sports? a crisply executed fast break, a well-written TV program. See, I'm driving it. Whatever is true, good, beautiful, lovely, gracious, stay with those things, cultivate those things, learn to love those things. Out of aesthetic interest? No, out of theological interest. Because the good, the true, and the beautiful lead you to God. And listen, everybody. They produce in us a sense of peace. Why is it that we love to contemplate, whether it's the Pacific Ocean or the Sistine Chapel or a beautiful cathedral or a beautifully executed double play? What is it? What is it about that?

13:22 It's communicating to us something of the shalom of God. So, hang around those things. learn to love those things cultivate them especially in an attitude of prayer grateful to God for these beautiful true and good things around me and that leads you by steady steps toward the interior castle toward the inner wine cellar toward the central place toward that place of deep peace