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  • Thomas Aquinas has a pretty darn good comment to the Gospel of John... I suppose Father Barron, being a follower of him, must have taken here something from there...

  • Why do we spend so much time adoring Mary? Didn't the angel in Revelation tell John not to fall down before him, since he was just a fellow servant? and where do we get off about them hearing us? don't some of these messages by Mary contradict scripture?

  • Thanks for the Chesterton quote. I for one do not worship Saturn or the Unconquered Sun either. Although some aspects of the pagan ritual, such as gift-giving, feasting, and the celebration of freedom, are not out of place as long as they are infused with a Christian spirit and practice. No doubt the Church Fathers felt similarly.

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  • Great Sermon and Merry Christmas!

  • wow , This is really nice Fr. Barron

  • ...and how it would strike the ears of a Greek:

    In the beginning was the Word:

    En Arche o Logos!

    Aristotle and Plato brought together and clarified. What an infinite and almost unimaginable addition to ancient philosophy that the Word who was in the Beginning, became flesh. Its shocking. ...It must mean something that the Gospel of John begins with those two most central philosophical concepts, to show what they really are.

  • Thank you Father Barron for explaining the part about the tent/ Temple and explaining that. 

  • Father Barron, on the issue of Christmas, there is debate on a mythical being known as Mithras whom is said to be the reason for Christmas instead of Jesus. Can you explain more on him and his relation to Jesus? He is somewhat brought up by few atheists such as Stephen Fry.

  • @xxHighChiefxx Mithraism was a Roman mystery religion contemporaneous to early Christianity. Its deity, Mithras, had his birthday placed on the winter solstice, which is a fairly universal holy day throughout different religions throughout the world. Some people like to make a big deal out of this and claim some nefarious act of plagiarism, but the truth is much simpler: the Church deliberately put Christmas on the 25th to coopt solstice celebrations and convert pagans.

  • @CoryTheRaven The late Rev. Alexander Hislop claims that the Catholic Church simply masks paganism, portraying it as Christianity. He states that Catholicism is actually hidden paganism, hence the idea that Christmas is actually a pagan holiday.

    His book "The Two Babylons" goes into detail on this. Thoughts?

  • @Mechanized0 From G.K. Chesterton:

    "There is one very vile habit that the pedants have, and that is explaining to a man why he does a thing when the man himself can explain quite well — and quite differently... Religion is one of them, and all the festivals and formalities that are rooted in religion...

  • @Mechanized0 ...Thus a man will tell me that in keeping Christmas I am not keeping a Christmas feast, but a pagan feast. This is exactly as if he told me that I was not feeling furiously angry, but only a little sad. I know how I am feeling all right; and why I am feeling it. When a learned man tells me that on the 25th of December I am really astronomically worshipping the sun, I answer that I am not."

  • Beautiful. Also getting A LOT out of your Advent and Christmas CDs, Father (from the Word on Fire website), and, before I began this Christmas Day, I read, again, the "Concluding Meditation" from your book "The Strangest Way" and was once again moved to tears. Can't wait to devour the entire book. Great writer and speaker you are, Father, about the Most Important Thing - God. Peace. God bless you from NJ.

  • Happy CHRISTmass

  • I had to open this video briefly in order to post it to Facebook and I found myself compelled to rewatch the whole thing even though it's 1:30 at night (as I just got back from Midnight Mass.) I haven't seen all of your videos yet but this may be your masterpeice. As a teenage aspiring apologist you've been one of my greatest resources and heroes. Thank you for this and Merry Christmas!!!

  • Great video Fr. Barron! God bless and have a great Christmas and New Year.

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  • Please pray for me im trying hard to get closer to God and im trying to study, im reading books by Scoot hahn and Peter kreeft but im finding it hard i keep forgeting the things i learn and its putting me off. i wanna be true christian and wanna be able to defend my faith.

  • @Daniel151jesus I will pray for you tonight, my friend. The best way to really learn and know your faith and to become a great apologist in the process is to simply live your faith out as best as you can, loving those around you and praying constantly. That will make you a fearsome apologist I'm certain!

  • @Millingtorres Thank you :)

  • @Millingtorres Thank you :)

  • @Daniel151jesus I am being slowly purged from this problem brother.The greatest thing to realize, is the humble simplicity of the truths of Christ and His Church. That even if we do not know as much as the great theologists and philosophers, or have as much discipline as the great saints, love is the supreme importance. To have a child like faith in the love and truth of Christ God and to walk in the life of Christ as best we can. All else will come as a result of this.I assure u

  • @Jy3pr6 Thanks man! 

  • Eliot Rausch's haunting 3 minute film "O night divine" which is now on YouTube, disturbs the basis of sentimentality, dogma and tradition with a groan of suffering joy

  • Father, will you make a video with an economic theme? You know, since Jesus championed the poor, and this recession is really hurting a lot of people in the world. I'm sure you would have something to say. What do you think about occupy Wall street? Is christianity an answer to the economic problem, and not just a theoretical idea, but a practical, useable one?

    I often meet people who say it's the lack of christians morals that started the recession. Greed, you know.

    Merry Christmas.

  • Ppppfffffffff.... did you just accuse the Manicheans of being dualist? Who brought to Christianity an inherent distrust of the flesh and the virtue of the spirit? Oh yeah, that Manichean convert, Augustine. Please, Christianity in large part is as much a dualist religion as Manichaenism.

  • @MobiusCoin Friend, all I can say is that you have a deeply inadequate understanding of either Manichaeism or Christianity--or perhaps both. Take a look at John 1:14 for the decisive text.

  • This is Such a powerful Gospel - that this was the "Last" Gospel at every Mass until the reforms of 1970 - There is a reason the Church wanted us to hear this at every Mass

  • I don't wanna offend people, but christopher hitchen gone is all I needed for christmas - said my sister.

  • @quezcatol Charming.

  • @quezcatol Maybe your sister should listen to father B's video on Hitchens. Love your enemies. They might even amuse you.

  • @quezcatol Please don't say things like that. Atheists need to be shown our love of others more than anyone else, Hitchens included. You're setting a bad example to your fellow believers and sending the message that the faithful are violent, which is certainly not true.

  • Thank you for being such an awesome teacher, Father! Merry Christmas!!

  • God bless you Father! After Holy Communion, I always say, "Thank you Lord, for Your infinite condescension to me a sinner!"

  • hello!

    I dont know if this will interest you at all, but I heard a setting of 'o magnum mysterium' by the great parisian (and deeply catholic) composer Francis Poulenc. To me, this captures how truly profound the nativity of our Lord is. Not sure if you care, but eh.

  • Best comments on Christmas I've ever heard.period.May God be with your spirit!

  • Hello Father. Could you please tell me, what is the picture at 12:30?

  • Father Barron, I would like to here take on the sola fide vs faith and works debate. I understand where you stand on the topic being a catholic, but I would like to here why you believe in faith and works

  • @manutdfan4321 Jesus wants us not simply to believe in him but to participate in him. This means that we must think as he thinks and act as he acts, putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said that I might have faith enough to move the mountains but that if I have not love, I am nothing. I couldn't put it much more clearly than that.

  • Listen carefully and to all the video, He is saying the same thing and more by saying, "Word became flesh so that we can know the father" plus he adds "So that we can be perfect in him". Again you are not Listen to video.

  • @manutdfan4321 I'd like to comment as well. I'm not Catholic, but Methodist, but a lot of my recent conversations with Catholics leads me to believe we believe the same thing, just that we word it differently. We are saved by grace, but judged by works. The works we do is the proof of our faith. Without the proof our faith is dead. It is like saying "I love you" to your wife but never doing anything to back those words up. Eventually they will become empty words.

  • This just might the best video on Christianity here on YT. Thank you for sharing father.

  • Father Barron, great video as always sir, God bless you and your family. Have a merry Christmas

  • Father, I have also noticed something; over the weekend retired Episcopal bishop George Packard was busted for scaling the fence of Trinity Wall Street cathedral in NY. I have a feeling that Jesus' preference for the poor is what motivated him to do this. Other clergy are also supporting Occupy Wall Street and saying this is what Jesus would do. Can you do a video that addresses this?

  • The idea, by the way, was to allow the Occupy people to use church property to set up their base, but Trinity said no. Was a church right to do this? Esp. when that church and its vestry has ties to the 1%? What would a Catholic church do? Again, can you do a video that addresses these things?

  • "Our newborn King to see" - he is a tiny child, born in a stable, not even a proper inn, with nowhere to lay his head. He belongs to no one, and paradoxically to all. He is not born in his home; he is born in a place whose name means "the House of Bread." Bethlehem. Remember this next time one kneels to receive the Bread & Wine of Life. :)

  • Unexceptionable, Father Barron. Merry Christmas.

  • Father Barron, you say here that we humans are made through and for God. You say that God is the deepest hunger of every human heart. I have a coworker named Michael who would contest that with every inch of his being. He, as a total nonbeliever, would say this is pure nonsense and you cannot speak for him, and claim that he longs for God because he would say he does not long for God. How in the world can one answer a person like this? Given his strident anger @ the church, compassion is hard.

  • @ladylejean215" Universalize the case of atheistism and you have the explanation for the vehemence and ferocity of modern atheism. It could not so hate a myth Atheism is not a doctrine, it is a cry of wrath.” Fulton J. Sheen

  • @ladylejean215

    "Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee." Is he completely satisfied with his life? Doesn't want a promotion or more possessions? Doesn't want more recognition or influence? Doesn't want more friends or family? God is the deepest hunger of every human heart, but sometimes we fail to recognize this and spend our whole life wondering why we want more.

  • @ladylejean215 Also, why is he angry at the Church? Assuming it's a moral issue, how does he justify objective morality without God? Naturalistic atheism requires relativism, the moral philosophy that claims all morals are subjective. Since it's basically a philosophical shrug, he'll have a hard time defending the view that something is "wrong" while denying that anything can really be "wrong".

  • @filthyswit Come on, man, that's a cheap shot. If you think I'm wrong about something, tell me, argue with me. If you really think I'm in league with 666, show me precisely why you think that way.

  • Amen to that! Merry Christmas, Fr. Barron!

  • Can you do a video on the death of Christopher Hitchens, just a final summation of your opinions about him?

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  • As a physicist I would like to take issue with the claim that a basic assumption of science (there are no basic assumptions in science) is that the universe is intelligible and rational. To make that assumption would be skipping steps. Indeed some aspects of the universe may not be intelligible. We LOOK for patterns at the edge of that which is known, but it is not assumed that we will find rational explanations to all phenomena or that such explanations even exist.

  • @ascott251 But the moment you would "find" such a state of affairs, you would cease to function as a physicist. Qua physicist, you are always oriented to the intelligible.

  • @wordonfirevideo Oriented towards the intelligible though we may be, it is in the purview of physics to set the current limits on our knowledge of the field. If phenomena A defies explanation, we mark it as a current limit of knowledge. In seeking to understand A we make no assumption that such explanations are possible. The key point here is: if you define that which you are looking for before you begin your inquiry your results can become biased. To a hammer, every problem looks like a nail

  • @ascott251 I am a physics teacher, and I also have a degree in philosophy, and I would like to point out that, even when we look for patterns, we assume that we can understand and interpret those patterns. This is in fact a philosophical assumption at the base of science, and a necessary one.

  • Thank you Fr. Barron don't know how I ever survived before You Tube came along

    You talk about our faith in words I can understand.

    God Bless You

    John

    Toronto Canada

  • I think "God condescended to come down to us" is an unfortunate choice of words. It seems to me to say God "completed the Desire to show 'the Way'.”, would be more accurate.

  • @jwbrock100 While I understand your point, I might disagree with you. We must recognize our weakness and miserable state to understand what a great and beautiful thing Christ did in condescending to come down to us. His Grace is so complete because of that condescension, not just to come here, but to do His Father's Will in not showing, but giving us "The Way" through His sacrifice and death at the hands of the people he meant to save. We are so low and only He can lift us.

  • Thank you for reminding us of the beauty of God's hope filled plan... assimilation into Christ's life. May we respectfully pass on this grace and mercy we have received because of His lavish love. - Tom

  • I have a question, is sunday shopping a sin?

  • @HeavenJoans1 no. search here vatican va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM

  • Awesome. Seriously awesome.

  • Good lecture, as usual. Quality wise the picture seems more compressed than in other videos.

  • Great Video, Pax et Bonum

  • Offtopic, but I alwats wanted to ask this to a priest: Considering how large is the universe, it's likely that somewhere other forms of intelligent life exist. The Bible, as it was written by people who knew little about the universe (I'm not blaming them) considered humans as the center of God's attention. However, IF other intelligent life forms exist somewhere in the universe, would you think they are also important to God? Would He turned into their flesh as Jesus here? Could they be saved?

  • @cristianfcao If God made them wouldn't the bible (which waws written by men, inspired by God) apply to them also? I don't know but it's an interesting question...

  • @cristianfcao Let's worry about our own little corner of the universe first.

  • @cristianfcao Just another face of God I thnk

  • @cristianfcao I think something along those lines. There is no end " out there ". It goes on and on and on and on for triliions upon trillions of miles. Is there something out there? Common sense and human thinking would lead me to thinks so. But the problem is we dont know and I dont think we ever will. I hope God exists. I desperatelt hope He exists.

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