# Bishop Barron – A Living Sacrifice: What It Really Means to Give Yourself to God

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 3 Oct 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75098722/a_living_sacrifice_bishop_barron_s_sunday_sermon.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you. Friends, for this 22nd Sunday of
[0:02] Speaker 1: Ordinary Time, I want to begin with a very brief
[0:05] Speaker 1: second reading taken from Paul to the Romans. Now, I've
[0:08] Speaker 1: said to you before, Paul, the first great theologian, in
[0:11] Speaker 1: some ways all of theology is a footnote to Paul,
[0:14] Speaker 1: and then Romans is his greatest work. And so it's
[0:18] Speaker 1: where all theologians look, it's where all Christian theology begins
[0:22] Speaker 1: in a way. Well, the little passage today, it's only
[0:25] Speaker 1: a few lines, but boy, does it pack a punch.
[0:27] Speaker 1: And I want to unpack this a little bit now today.
[0:30] Speaker 1: Let me just tell you now, here's how it begins.
[0:32] Speaker 1: I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God,
[0:37] Speaker 1: to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. Now, to
[0:43] Speaker 1: get this, we have to go back to the youth
[0:46] Speaker 1: of St. Paul. So he's Saul, Shaul, they would have
[0:50] Speaker 1: said in his Hebrew, from Tarsus. So he's a Jew
[0:53] Speaker 1: of the Diaspora. Brilliant young man, knows the Hebrew scriptures
[0:58] Speaker 1: and also knows Greek philosophy and so on. He's then
[1:01] Speaker 1: sent to Jerusalem, the center of the Jewish world, to
[1:04] Speaker 1: study with Gamaliel, the great rabbi. And while he's there
[1:08] Speaker 1: in Jerusalem, what would he have known? He would have
[1:11] Speaker 1: known very well all of the rituals and practices around
[1:17] Speaker 1: the holy temple. Now, what happened at the temple? Well,
[1:20] Speaker 1: there's some teaching went on. It's true there were scribes
[1:22] Speaker 1: and so on. But the main focus of the temple
[1:26] Speaker 1: in Jerusalem was sacrifice— Largely animal sacrifice, though there was
[1:31] Speaker 1: grain sacrifice, too. There were thank offerings, as well. Now, sacrifice.
[1:39] Speaker 1: We'll use that word, but in a very metaphorical sort
[1:41] Speaker 1: of way. The man made a sacrifice, or there's a
[1:43] Speaker 1: sacrifice bunt in baseball. But sacrifice was so essential to
[1:48] Speaker 1: the religious consciousness of the ancient world, and especially of
[1:52] Speaker 1: ancient Israel. The word, our word, sacrificium in Latin, comes
[1:56] Speaker 1: from sacrum fatere— to make holy. All the sacrifices of
[2:04] Speaker 1: the temple— thank offerings, offerings of praise, grain offerings, and especially
[2:09] Speaker 1: animal offerings, holocausts offered up— were what? They were attempts to
[2:14] Speaker 1: effect a reconciliation between divinity and humanity. Now, that word,
[2:21] Speaker 1: of course, is very interesting— reconciliation. It comes from— the Latin roots
[2:27] Speaker 1: are— eyelash to eyelash. Cilia are the eyelashes. So, to
[2:32] Speaker 1: be reconciled means brought back eyelash to eyelash. See, we're
[2:41] Speaker 1: alienated from each other and from God. We're wandering in
[2:44] Speaker 1: a far country. To be reconciled is to be brought
[2:48] Speaker 1: now face to face again with God. To be made holy,
[2:54] Speaker 1: sacrum fatere, right? To make holy. So, that was what
[2:56] Speaker 1: the sacrifice was all about. Now, some of these were relatively,
[3:01] Speaker 1: you might say, peaceful and effortless. If I just want
[3:04] Speaker 1: to offer thanksgiving to God, it didn't cost me all
[3:08] Speaker 1: that much. But a sin offering— I know I'm a sinner,
[3:16] Speaker 1: and I'm coming seeking the forgiveness of God. I'm seeking
[3:19] Speaker 1: to repair this broken relationship. What did I do? I
[3:23] Speaker 1: brought an animal to the temple— the throat of the
[3:27] Speaker 1: animal would be slit and the animal would die. The
[3:29] Speaker 1: blood poured out and the animal's body offered up. What
[3:34] Speaker 1: was going on inside the psychology of someone making that sacrifice? Well, it's,
[3:39] Speaker 1: this animal represents me. This, by right, should be happening
[3:43] Speaker 1: to me. In the suffering and death of this animal,
[3:46] Speaker 1: I'm offering myself, Lord, painfully back to you. I'm being
[3:52] Speaker 1: brought back online. with the God from whom I have
[3:56] Speaker 1: been unreconciled, right? So, sacrifice was all about bringing divinity
[4:04] Speaker 1: and humanity together. Okay. So, young Shaul, young Saul of Tarsus,
[4:09] Speaker 1: he gets all this. He lives in the shadow of
[4:13] Speaker 1: the temple. Then he met the crucified and risen Jesus. Now,
[4:22] Speaker 1: that experience as he's going to persecute the church on
[4:26] Speaker 1: the road to Damascus. He's knocked to the ground, and
[4:30] Speaker 1: the light shines around him, and he hears that voice, Saul, Saul,
[4:34] Speaker 1: why are you persecuting me? He meets the risen Jesus,
[4:39] Speaker 1: and everything changes. Or better, I really shouldn't say that.
[4:43] Speaker 1: Not everything changes. Better, everything he knew about his Israelite religion,
[4:50] Speaker 1: including the temples, now has been transposed into a different key.
[4:58] Speaker 1: It now takes on a new purpose and focus. It's
[5:02] Speaker 1: been brought into a higher context of meaning. What does
[5:06] Speaker 1: he see now that he's met the risen Lord? He
[5:09] Speaker 1: sees that all of Israel, and that means the covenant,
[5:13] Speaker 1: that means Torah, that means the prophets, and it means
[5:18] Speaker 1: the temple and its sacrifices, all have been brought up
[5:25] Speaker 1: into Christ. Christ recapitulates, draws to himself all the great
[5:31] Speaker 1: traditions of Israel. So that now, listen, listen, it's the
[5:37] Speaker 1: heart of Christianity. Now, Jesus in person is the point
[5:43] Speaker 1: of reconciliation. Don't we say in our theological language that
[5:47] Speaker 1: in him two natures, divine and human, come together? Right.
[5:52] Speaker 1: In his person, he is the reconciliation of divinity and humanity.
[5:57] Speaker 1: He's the fulfillment of the covenant and the Torah, and
[6:01] Speaker 1: he is the supreme sacrifice. All of the millions of
[6:06] Speaker 1: sacrifices made in that temple over hundreds of years are
[6:10] Speaker 1: now gathered together into his one great sacrifice— Jesus is
[6:17] Speaker 1: the fulfillment of Israel. Now, watch Paul, by the way.
[6:21] Speaker 1: Shaul has become the Apostle Paul, ringing the changes on
[6:26] Speaker 1: this idea all throughout his letters. Okay? Now, let's take
[6:31] Speaker 1: one more step before we get back to this little passage.
[6:33] Speaker 1: One more step. When he met Jesus and he heard
[6:38] Speaker 1: those haunting words, because they're repeated, Paul, they come up
[6:42] Speaker 1: again and again in the Acts of the Apostles. Saul, Saul,
[6:46] Speaker 1: Why are you persecuting me? Well, Saul's persecuting the church, right?
[6:53] Speaker 1: But Jesus so identifies himself with his church that he
[6:57] Speaker 1: can say, Saul, you're persecuting me. The church, and Paul
[7:04] Speaker 1: is so insistent on this, is not just a club
[7:06] Speaker 1: of like-minded people, not a society of people that love Jesus. No, no,
[7:12] Speaker 1: much more radical and dramatic than that. The church is
[7:16] Speaker 1: a mystical body, cells, molecules, organs of the body of Christ,
[7:24] Speaker 1: which means, here's the last step, the church itself, you
[7:29] Speaker 1: and I, all the baptized, we are meant to be
[7:32] Speaker 1: the place where divinity and humanity come together. We are
[7:39] Speaker 1: the sacrifice. We are the reconciliations. What Jesus effected through
[7:45] Speaker 1: his cross and resurrection, now we participate in that. Okay,
[7:50] Speaker 1: with all that background in mind, listen again to Paul.
[7:55] Speaker 1: I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God,
[7:59] Speaker 1: to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. Now, this
[8:04] Speaker 1: is a Jew talking. He's not distinguishing body, soul here
[8:07] Speaker 1: the way a Greek might. When he says your bodies,
[8:09] Speaker 1: he means you. He means you. To offer yourself— as
[8:14] Speaker 1: a living sacrifice, you become the place where God's will
[8:23] Speaker 1: meets the human will. God's mind meets the human mind.
[8:28] Speaker 1: God's purpose meets the human purpose. God's will is determining
[8:36] Speaker 1: your private life. God's will is determining your public life.
[8:41] Speaker 1: God's will is determining is animating your friendships. God's will
[8:47] Speaker 1: is what your professional life is all about. You see
[8:50] Speaker 1: what's happening? Becoming a living sacrifice means everything in you
[8:57] Speaker 1: is now turned to God. May every thought, every action,
[9:04] Speaker 1: every impulse, every emotion, everything in you, directed to God.
[9:11] Speaker 1: And now, What does this become? Listen as Paul goes on.
[9:16] Speaker 1: You offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and
[9:19] Speaker 1: pleasing to God. Your spiritual worship. What was going on
[9:26] Speaker 1: in the temple? Worship by means of sacrifice. What's worship?
[9:30] Speaker 1: I've said to you before, from the older English word, worth-ship.
[9:35] Speaker 1: It's turning to what's of highest value. That's worship. Now,
[9:40] Speaker 1: fellow sinners... We all worship something, right? And it's typically
[9:45] Speaker 1: something other than God, which is our whole problem. What's
[9:50] Speaker 1: Paul saying here? In making of your whole life a
[9:53] Speaker 1: living sacrifice, you are now turned to God in right ways. praise.
[10:03] Speaker 1: You're not praising anything else, nothing in this world. You
[10:07] Speaker 1: are praising God, turned in every aspect of your life
[10:12] Speaker 1: toward God, becoming thereby a living sacrifice. Now listen as
[10:17] Speaker 1: he goes on. Do not conform yourselves to this age,
[10:23] Speaker 1: but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. See,
[10:27] Speaker 1: what does it mean to be conformed to the age?
[10:29] Speaker 1: That means I'm worshiping things that every sinner around me worships.
[10:34] Speaker 1: That means sex and pleasure and money and power and
[10:37] Speaker 1: country and family and everything else that gets worshiped. When
[10:42] Speaker 1: I turn my energies and my powers and everything in
[10:46] Speaker 1: me to these false gods, I get off kilter. I
[10:50] Speaker 1: become sort of cattywampus. I'm lost. See, what Paul's saying
[10:54] Speaker 1: is when you worship a rite, when you become a
[10:58] Speaker 1: rightly ordered living sacrifice, now we're talking. Listen, as he
[11:04] Speaker 1: closes this little passage, that you may discern what is
[11:08] Speaker 1: the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect. Now, listen,
[11:15] Speaker 1: I'm going to give you a model for your whole life.
[11:18] Speaker 1: Not that I follow this. It's very hard for us
[11:21] Speaker 1: sinners to follow this. But here's the formula. What's the
[11:25] Speaker 1: will of God? Okay, now, is my mind attuned to
[11:29] Speaker 1: the will of God? Is my will attuned to the
[11:34] Speaker 1: will of God? Are my passions and emotions in service
[11:38] Speaker 1: of a mind and will that are attuned to the
[11:41] Speaker 1: will of God? Are my friendships in line with the
[11:45] Speaker 1: will of God? Is the way I seek entertainment in
[11:48] Speaker 1: accord with the will of God? Is my private life
[11:52] Speaker 1: in accord with the will of God? Is the way
[11:54] Speaker 1: I lead my public life, in my work? You see,
[11:58] Speaker 1: you may discern the will of God and then turn
[12:02] Speaker 1: your life in accordance with that will. You become a
[12:06] Speaker 1: living sacrifice. Okay, just a quick word about the gospel,
[12:12] Speaker 1: which sheds great light on this. So Jesus now says
[12:14] Speaker 1: to his disciples— Whoever wishes to come after me must
[12:20] Speaker 1: deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. Now,
[12:26] Speaker 1: for us, the cross has become a religious symbol. We
[12:29] Speaker 1: put it up on walls, and it probably gives a
[12:31] Speaker 1: sense of peace, you know, if anything. They knew about crosses.
[12:35] Speaker 1: The people he's talking to here, they knew all about them.
[12:36] Speaker 1: They saw them. They saw people writhing in their death
[12:40] Speaker 1: throes for days at a time on Roman crosses. They
[12:42] Speaker 1: knew exactly what that meant. It meant supreme suffering. So
[12:46] Speaker 1: when he says blithely, whoever wants to follow me must
[12:50] Speaker 1: take up his cross. Well, see, why? Why? Because we're
[12:55] Speaker 1: off kilter. Because our wills aren't properly directed, right? Because
[13:00] Speaker 1: everything I just named is not ordered to God's will,
[13:03] Speaker 1: but to something else. Therefore, bringing us back online is
[13:10] Speaker 1: going to feel Like a sacrifice. And I mean now
[13:14] Speaker 1: those bloody sacrifices offered in the Jerusalem temple. What's happening
[13:19] Speaker 1: to this poor animal? His blood poured out. He's dying
[13:22] Speaker 1: in front of me. Ought to be happening to me.
[13:26] Speaker 1: Getting on line with God is not a walk in
[13:28] Speaker 1: the park. It's a sacrificial business. Listen, whoever wishes to
[13:36] Speaker 1: save his life will lose it. See, what's the life
[13:41] Speaker 1: he's losing? That old one, that awk kilter, that weird
[13:45] Speaker 1: life where I'm worshiping something other than God. You've got
[13:48] Speaker 1: to lose that life, and that's going to be painful.
[13:52] Speaker 1: But see, when you become, everybody, a living sacrifice, that
[13:57] Speaker 1: means your life is getting back online. And God bless you.

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