# Give Up the Ego-Drama! Bishop Barrons Daily Sermon

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 19 Aug 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/73911059/give_up_the_ego_drama_bishop_barrons_sunday_sermon.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you, friends, become to the fourth Sunday
[0:03] Speaker 1: of Advent, and the church gives us this marvelous story
[0:06] Speaker 1: of the visitation Mary's visit to her cousin Elizabeth. And
[0:10] Speaker 1: I'll tell you the word I've always loved in this story.
[0:13] Speaker 1: It's the word haste. Let me just read to you
[0:15] Speaker 1: the beginning of this, this famous account. In those days,
[0:21] Speaker 1: Mary set out with haste to a Judean town in
[0:26] Speaker 1: the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah
[0:29] Speaker 1: and greeted Elizabeth. So we're right after the denunciation. Mary
[0:33] Speaker 1: has discovered her mission, and she goes quickly. She goes
[0:38] Speaker 1: in haste. The reason she moves fast is she knows
[0:44] Speaker 1: who she is and she knows what she's about, because
[0:47] Speaker 1: she's found her role in the theodrama. I know I've
[0:51] Speaker 1: used that word with you many times before. See, most
[0:55] Speaker 1: of us are stuck in the boring and narrow convent
[1:00] Speaker 1: finds of the ego drama. That's our little drama. I'm
[1:04] Speaker 1: producing it, I'm directing it. I'm above all starring in it.
[1:07] Speaker 1: It's this story that I'm making up on my own
[1:10] Speaker 1: terms for my own purposes. Bore me to death with
[1:14] Speaker 1: the ego drama. When you're caught in the ego drama,
[1:20] Speaker 1: you don't really know who you are. You don't know
[1:23] Speaker 1: where you're going, because you've not been galvanized by some value,
[1:28] Speaker 1: some good outside yourself. It's calling you beyond the narrow
[1:31] Speaker 1: confines of your little ego.
[1:35] Speaker 2: Nothing's drawing you, nothing's exciting you.
[1:40] Speaker 1: The result of that is what I've called before the culture.
[1:45] Speaker 2: It's a lot of our culture.
[1:48] Speaker 3: You know, I'm doing what I want to do, and
[1:51] Speaker 3: you're doing what you want to do. And you know,
[1:53] Speaker 3: above all we better tolerate each other because I can't
[1:57] Speaker 3: be imposing my view on you.
[1:59] Speaker 2: No, nothing objectively true and good. That's just the power
[2:04] Speaker 2: of play.
[2:05] Speaker 1: All we've got are these little egos generating their own
[2:08] Speaker 1: little dramas and kind of tolerating everybody else. Nobody moves
[2:14] Speaker 1: in haste in that environment. That's the huh who cares?
[2:19] Speaker 1: Bored culture? The classical spiritual writers, by the way, referred
[2:23] Speaker 1: to that as sloth. It's one of the deadly sins.
[2:27] Speaker 1: That means, it's a lack of energy and purpose in
[2:31] Speaker 1: regard to spiritual things. Mary is not playing an ego
[2:36] Speaker 1: dramatic game.
[2:38] Speaker 2: She's playing a field.
[2:40] Speaker 1: Dramatic game. God has revealed to her her mission, her purpose,
[2:47] Speaker 1: and so she moves.
[2:49] Speaker 2: That's the sign of the Saints.
[2:51] Speaker 1: When even the contemplative Saints, there's always something that's energetic
[2:55] Speaker 1: about them. They know where they are and what they're going,
[2:59] Speaker 1: where they're going. You know, I think you're of Newman's
[3:03] Speaker 1: famous image of the river, and he says, you know,
[3:06] Speaker 1: what gives the river verve and energy and purpose and
[3:09] Speaker 1: directionality are the firmness of its banks. The banks are firm,
[3:15] Speaker 1: and the water is going to move with purpose through them.
[3:19] Speaker 1: But knock down the banks, Newman says, and that river
[3:22] Speaker 1: that's full of energy now just widens out into a
[3:26] Speaker 1: big lazy lake that's not really going anywhere. It's just
[3:31] Speaker 1: kind of sitting there.
[3:32] Speaker 2: That's a lot of our culture, everybody.
[3:35] Speaker 1: That's a lot of our culture today is a lot
[3:38] Speaker 1: of people lying on their individual air mattresses on this
[3:42] Speaker 1: big lazy lake, without objective value, without a sense of
[3:47] Speaker 1: purpose and verve and energy. That's why people aren't going
[3:51] Speaker 1: in haste in the spiritual sense. They might be running around.
[3:55] Speaker 1: There's a lot of running around in our culture, but
[3:57] Speaker 1: people aren't moving with that energy that comes from high
[4:03] Speaker 1: spiritual purpose. Now here's something I love two about this story.
[4:10] Speaker 1: Mary moves in haste to see her cousin, Elizabeth. She
[4:17] Speaker 1: reaches out to somebody else who has found her role
[4:23] Speaker 1: in the theodrama. So Elizabeth too. She's pregnant with John
[4:27] Speaker 1: the Baptist. She knows her purpose in God's story. Now
[4:31] Speaker 1: listen to me. The ego drama, as I suggested, tends
[4:36] Speaker 1: to drive us apart from each other because I got
[4:39] Speaker 1: my little story, You got your little story, and we're
[4:42] Speaker 1: just gonna tolerate each other. But no, no, don't you
[4:45] Speaker 1: impose anything on me. I won't impose things on you. Well,
[4:49] Speaker 1: it drives us apart. It produces, if you want, the
[4:53] Speaker 1: litigious and divisive society that we have, us against them,
[5:00] Speaker 1: this individual against that individual, everybody claiming rights and prerogatives
[5:03] Speaker 1: and privileges, a divided society, hostile, antagonistic.
[5:11] Speaker 2: The theodrama tends to draw.
[5:14] Speaker 1: Us together because once I discovered my role, listen now,
[5:19] Speaker 1: in a purpose that transcends my little petty preoccupations. I've
[5:24] Speaker 1: discovered my role in God's drama. Well, then I'm linked
[5:28] Speaker 1: to everybody else who's found his or her role in
[5:31] Speaker 1: that same theodrama is now we come together in common purpose.
[5:39] Speaker 2: Again.
[5:39] Speaker 1: I know I've used this before with you, but this
[5:42] Speaker 1: old Aristotelian idea of the transcendent third, when the great
[5:47] Speaker 1: philosopher said that a relationship or a friendship or a
[5:51] Speaker 1: marriage will endure not so much when the two are
[5:55] Speaker 1: connected to each other, but when the two together are
[5:59] Speaker 1: connected to transcendent third, some transcendent good that they both love. Well,
[6:05] Speaker 1: this is pre eminently true of the theodrama. Together, we
[6:10] Speaker 1: know what God wants us to do, and so beautifully
[6:14] Speaker 1: Mary and Elizabeth come together, mind you, not in rivalry,
[6:21] Speaker 1: that's you know. The sign that we're caught in the
[6:23] Speaker 1: ego drama is that we we start conflicting with each other. Right,
[6:27] Speaker 1: So my my little project is getting in the way
[6:30] Speaker 1: of your little project, and so we start fighting.
[6:34] Speaker 2: It's true across.
[6:35] Speaker 1: The board and human affairs, isn't it is that we
[6:38] Speaker 1: just tend to be at odds with each other because
[6:40] Speaker 1: we are living ego dramatically. When we discover our role
[6:45] Speaker 1: in the theodrama, then we start coming together for common purpose.
[6:52] Speaker 1: Years ago, when I was a student in France, I
[6:55] Speaker 1: heard a marvelous sermon for the for the visitation and
[6:59] Speaker 1: this the preacher use the phrase lovely in French set
[7:02] Speaker 1: conspiracion feminine. It means literally, if you translated it this
[7:08] Speaker 1: feminine conspiracy. Of course, conspiracy in English has a negative overtone,
[7:13] Speaker 1: like a conspiracy theory. But conspiracion, well, it's from the
[7:17] Speaker 1: Latin spirare, which means to breathe. Right. A conspiracion is
[7:24] Speaker 1: a breathing together.
[7:27] Speaker 2: It's a coming together for common and mutual purpose. Beautiful.
[7:35] Speaker 1: The visitation is a conspiracion feminine between these two women
[7:39] Speaker 1: who have found their role in the theodrama. Okay, now,
[7:46] Speaker 1: what can we say a little more specifically about the
[7:48] Speaker 1: theodrama they're in.
[7:51] Speaker 2: It has a lot to do with David.
[7:53] Speaker 1: I'll go back to our first reading from the prophet
[7:56] Speaker 1: Micah prophesying about this little town of Bethem, from which
[8:01] Speaker 1: will come this savior. Listen now, he the Savior, shall
[8:09] Speaker 1: stand firm and shepherd his flock by the strength of
[8:13] Speaker 1: the Lord. In the majestic name of the Lord, his
[8:16] Speaker 1: God and his greatness shall reach to the ends of
[8:19] Speaker 1: the earth.
[8:20] Speaker 2: He shall be peace.
[8:23] Speaker 1: Mike is speaking now out of this great tradition that
[8:27] Speaker 1: says from David, a descendant will come who will be
[8:33] Speaker 1: the true king, who will be the true shepherd, who will,
[8:36] Speaker 1: like his ancestor David, gather the tribes, who will cleanse
[8:40] Speaker 1: and purify the temple and restore the fortunes of Israel. Okay,
[8:45] Speaker 1: and we can hear that now up and down the
[8:46] Speaker 1: Psalms and in much of the Old Testament. But I
[8:51] Speaker 1: want you to notice something again in this description. Yes,
[8:55] Speaker 1: a dividic king is being described. Yes, this human figure
[9:00] Speaker 1: shall stand firm and shepherd his flocked by the strength
[9:02] Speaker 1: of the Lord, et cetera. But then this his greatness,
[9:07] Speaker 1: shall reach to the ends of the earth, and he
[9:11] Speaker 1: shall be peace by implication for all the nations of
[9:17] Speaker 1: the world. Well, we're going way beyond the job description
[9:20] Speaker 1: of a king of a little Middle Eastern of nation.
[9:26] Speaker 1: I mean, sure, this human figure descendant of David could
[9:29] Speaker 1: do these good things for the sake of Israel. But
[9:31] Speaker 1: this grand, this almost impossibly grand description, that he will
[9:37] Speaker 1: be peace, his authority will extend to all the nations.
[9:41] Speaker 1: See what's being suggested, everybody, And again you can find
[9:43] Speaker 1: it throughout the Old Testament that this figure, yes is
[9:47] Speaker 1: a descendant of David. Yes he is a human figure.
[9:52] Speaker 1: He's more than that, he's more than that. He's also strangely,
[9:59] Speaker 1: the God lot of Israel. And again, look in these
[10:03] Speaker 1: great texts when the Lord says, I myself will come
[10:08] Speaker 1: and shepherd my people, now the reference is to a
[10:11] Speaker 1: dividic king old shepherd. But yet through behind that figure
[10:17] Speaker 1: it's the Lord himself will shepherd his people. Now, that's
[10:24] Speaker 1: if we're reading it with care, we're reading it completely.
[10:27] Speaker 1: That's what the Old Testament is predicting, a dividic figure
[10:32] Speaker 1: who is also the God of Israel himself come to
[10:37] Speaker 1: shepherd his people. All right, all right, now with that
[10:41] Speaker 1: in the background, what's the theodrama that these two women said?
[10:45] Speaker 1: Conspiracion feminine? This feminine conspiracy? What are they part of?
[10:52] Speaker 2: Will listen to Elizabeth? How does this.
[10:59] Speaker 1: Happen to me that the mother of my lord should
[11:05] Speaker 1: come to me? Mary, her cousin pregnant, I mean, obviously
[11:12] Speaker 1: with this human figure.
[11:16] Speaker 2: But she doesn't.
[11:17] Speaker 1: Say, how marvelous Mary, that you, who are going to
[11:20] Speaker 1: give birth to this human, purely human child, has come
[11:25] Speaker 1: to me. No, No, listen again, how does it happen
[11:29] Speaker 1: to me that the mother of my lord.
[11:33] Speaker 2: Should come to me?
[11:36] Speaker 1: And they knew what they're talking about when someone at
[11:39] Speaker 1: this time and in this place, when a Jew of
[11:42] Speaker 1: that time and place would use the term I dony
[11:45] Speaker 1: of the Lord.
[11:47] Speaker 2: She's talking about the God of Israel.
[11:49] Speaker 1: She knows, and Elizabeth becomes one of the very first
[11:52] Speaker 1: proclaimers of the gospel.
[11:55] Speaker 2: She knows that the one with whom Mary is pregnant
[12:01] Speaker 2: is a son of David. Yes, indeed, but also the
[12:04] Speaker 2: Son of God. That's the theodrama of these two women
[12:10] Speaker 2: are involved in the coming to birth of the Son
[12:14] Speaker 2: of God. And then that gorgeous detail when Elizabeth heard
[12:20] Speaker 2: Mary's greeting, we hear the infant leaped in her womb.
[12:27] Speaker 1: If Mary is bearing the Son of God, then she
[12:31] Speaker 1: is the Ark of the Covenant par excellence, right, the
[12:34] Speaker 1: Ark of the Covenant, which in David's time bore the
[12:38] Speaker 1: presence of the God of Israel. And David, when he
[12:42] Speaker 1: brought that ark into his holy city of Jerusalem, did
[12:45] Speaker 1: a festive dance in its presence. So John the Baptist,
[12:50] Speaker 1: who like his mother, is a proclaimer of this truth
[12:54] Speaker 1: because he does his own version of David's dance in
[12:58] Speaker 1: the womb of his mother before a merely human figure,
[13:04] Speaker 1: but before the Lord. Now here's the marvelous thing. Friends,
[13:10] Speaker 1: I'll end with this. We're part of the same theodrama.
[13:16] Speaker 1: These are events that happened long ago with this wonderful
[13:19] Speaker 1: Conspiracion Feminine. But we're part of the same story because
[13:25] Speaker 1: our job is to proclaim this same Christ to the nations,
[13:30] Speaker 1: that his.
[13:31] Speaker 2: Name might go out to the ends of the.
[13:33] Speaker 1: World and that he might be peace. That job is
[13:37] Speaker 1: now in our hands. Let's give up the boring.
[13:42] Speaker 2: Ego drama.
[13:45] Speaker 1: Let's give up the game that our culture keeps trying
[13:47] Speaker 1: to make us play, and embrace this marvelous soul, expanding theodrama.
[13:58] Speaker 1: And then, like Mary, trust me when I tell you,
[14:02] Speaker 1: we'll go in haste. We'll do our role in the
[14:06] Speaker 1: theodrama with enthusiasm and God bless you.
[14:11] Speaker 2: Thanks so much for watching.
[14:13] Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this video, I invite you to share
[14:15] Speaker 1: it and to subscribe to my YouTube channel.

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