# Enter the Adventure - Bishop Barron's Daily Sermon

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 30 Jun 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72733598/enter_the_adventure_bishop_barron_s_sunday_sermon.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you friends. Last week I spoke about
[0:03] Speaker 1: Paul to the Romans, this great text, this marvelous text
[0:07] Speaker 1: by the first great theologian of the Church. And today
[0:09] Speaker 1: we're reading from the very end of Romans Romans fourteen.
[0:13] Speaker 1: And I wonder if you could put this statement up
[0:15] Speaker 1: wherever you'd see it, on your refrigerator, on your computer screen. Listen,
[0:21] Speaker 1: none of us lives for oneself, and no one dies
[0:25] Speaker 1: for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lord,
[0:29] Speaker 1: and if we die, we die for the Lord. So
[0:31] Speaker 1: then whether we live or die, we are the Lord's
[0:36] Speaker 1: I think in many ways, the whole Bible, the whole
[0:40] Speaker 1: of Revelation, is summed up in this statement. None of
[0:45] Speaker 1: us lives for oneself. When I spoke about justification last week,
[0:51] Speaker 1: I refer to that line from Paul. It's no longer
[0:54] Speaker 1: I who live. It's Christ who lives in me. It's
[0:59] Speaker 1: not the old self that lived for itself that's gone.
[1:06] Speaker 1: Paul considers that rubbish. It's Christ who lives in me.
[1:12] Speaker 1: I belong to somebody else. It's not my mind and
[1:18] Speaker 1: its prerogatives, my will and its desires, my inclinations that matter.
[1:25] Speaker 1: It's what Christ is thinking. And willing and acting in me.
[1:31] Speaker 1: I'm not my own and Paul says that too. You've
[1:34] Speaker 1: been bought and at a price. You don't belong to yourself. Now.
[1:39] Speaker 1: The reason I say this is so important for us
[1:43] Speaker 1: is can you see how everything in our culture militates
[1:47] Speaker 1: against this. I think that's why Christianity is struggling in
[1:52] Speaker 1: our world today. I mean we say the opposite. No, No,
[1:57] Speaker 1: it's your life, you decide, you choose. It's all about
[2:03] Speaker 1: finding your voice, asserting your prerogatives. I mean everywhere you
[2:09] Speaker 1: listen in the culture, everywhere you look in the culture,
[2:11] Speaker 1: you find the same message. You do belong to yourself,
[2:15] Speaker 1: and you've had it with other people telling you what
[2:17] Speaker 1: to do. But the Bible is calling for a revolution,
[2:24] Speaker 1: a conversion, A metaanoya. There's the word that we find
[2:29] Speaker 1: in the New Testament meta nouse, going beyond the mind
[2:32] Speaker 1: you have. The mind we have now in our culture
[2:35] Speaker 1: is clearly, I belong to myself. I am my own project.
[2:41] Speaker 1: M you belong to another. You know. I might have
[2:45] Speaker 1: referenced this before with you, but Richard Roh has done
[2:48] Speaker 1: this work in the initiation rituals of primal People's and
[2:51] Speaker 1: I find it very illuminating. This is across the cultures
[2:56] Speaker 1: that's around the world. There's a similarity in the way
[3:00] Speaker 1: in which young men especially are initiated into manhood, into adulthood.
[3:05] Speaker 1: It always involves a kind of stripping away of the
[3:11] Speaker 1: self regarding child and moving that child into the far
[3:17] Speaker 1: greater space of powers that transcend him. You know. So
[3:21] Speaker 1: I might have rehearsed this with you before, but typically
[3:23] Speaker 1: a young man is ripped away from his home, maybe
[3:26] Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, and he's taken out
[3:28] Speaker 1: of sleep. He's scarified in some way. The tooth is
[3:32] Speaker 1: knocked out, or his face is scarred. He's physically marked.
[3:38] Speaker 1: He's initiated into the lore and history of the tribe.
[3:41] Speaker 1: But then in a culminating moment, he's brought out into nature,
[3:46] Speaker 1: whether it's the tundra or the jungle or depending on
[3:49] Speaker 1: the geography, and he's told to survive. He's got to
[3:52] Speaker 1: make his way. And only when having survived this natural challenge,
[4:01] Speaker 1: when he comes into contact with the power of God,
[4:05] Speaker 1: only then is he to return to the tribe and
[4:10] Speaker 1: functions as an adult. Now, Roar sums this up, and
[4:15] Speaker 1: I want to just juxtapose it to Paul's observation here
[4:19] Speaker 1: he sums us up in these principles, the initiation ritual
[4:23] Speaker 1: is meant to tell the young man. First, life is hard. Secondly,
[4:29] Speaker 1: you're not that important. Thirdly, you're not in control. Fourthly,
[4:35] Speaker 1: you are going to die. And finally, your life is
[4:39] Speaker 1: not about you. Each one of those, even as I
[4:44] Speaker 1: say them, and I've said them before, even as I
[4:46] Speaker 1: say them, something is blocking in me. And I bet
[4:50] Speaker 1: you have the same experience. Think of this now in
[4:55] Speaker 1: comparison to the attitude of a child. Life is hard
[5:00] Speaker 1: for a child, right, for life's easy. He's being taken
[5:04] Speaker 1: care of. People are bringing him food and sheltering him
[5:06] Speaker 1: and keeping him warm or cool or whatever he needs.
[5:09] Speaker 1: Life is so hard. You're not that important. Well, not
[5:12] Speaker 1: for a child. No, a child thinks he's very very important.
[5:16] Speaker 1: He seems to be the center of attention of his parents.
[5:18] Speaker 1: The world does seem to revolve around him and his needs.
[5:23] Speaker 1: You're not in control. I don't know. A little child
[5:26] Speaker 1: just can cry or make a funny face or smile
[5:29] Speaker 1: or whatever, and parents bring him what he wants. He
[5:32] Speaker 1: seems to be very much in control of his life.
[5:36] Speaker 1: You're going to die, Well, a little child is probably
[5:38] Speaker 1: not even aware of the fact of death. Your life
[5:42] Speaker 1: is not about you. Tell that to a little child.
[5:44] Speaker 1: His life is all about him, that's all it's about.
[5:47] Speaker 1: It's about meeting his needs and meeting his desires. And yeah,
[5:51] Speaker 1: I'm the center of attention. My life's pretty easy. I
[5:54] Speaker 1: seem to be in control of these people. My life's
[5:56] Speaker 1: all about me. See in the very point, everybody, the
[6:00] Speaker 1: very point of the initiation rituals is to shake us
[6:04] Speaker 1: out of that consciousness. Because as long as you live
[6:08] Speaker 1: in that little world, you're not going to be alive.
[6:13] Speaker 1: You'll be permanently a child, maybe at best an adolescent.
[6:19] Speaker 1: You will never listen, now, enter into the adventure of
[6:23] Speaker 1: being a true human being, because you'll be in this little,
[6:28] Speaker 1: well lighted space of your own self. Regard how dull
[6:31] Speaker 1: that is. I mean understandable, yes for a kid, but
[6:34] Speaker 1: how dull that is for an adult. And that's why
[6:39] Speaker 1: this initiation ritual is meant to do this painful work.
[6:45] Speaker 1: You know, think of the scarification or they're knocking out
[6:48] Speaker 1: of a tooth. Yeah, life is hard, and it's really
[6:51] Speaker 1: salutary for you to know that in your own body,
[6:56] Speaker 1: that there's a permanent reminder to you in your own
[6:59] Speaker 1: fathe that life is hard and then in fact you're
[7:04] Speaker 1: going to die. Your life isn't about you. Rather, it's
[7:09] Speaker 1: about this family and tribe to which you belong. It's
[7:13] Speaker 1: about this natural world of which you are a very
[7:16] Speaker 1: small part. And finally, it's about God and God's great
[7:22] Speaker 1: purpose for you. Can I make bold everybody to say this.
[7:27] Speaker 1: I think our culture right now is stuck in a
[7:31] Speaker 1: kind of permanent adolescence. This this excessive self regard, self justification,
[7:40] Speaker 1: safe spaces, protecting my ego, don't tell me what to
[7:44] Speaker 1: think or do. And may I say this disaffiliation from
[7:48] Speaker 1: the churches. And I know everyone's full of righteous indignation about,
[7:52] Speaker 1: you know, corruption of the church. And God knows that's true.
[7:56] Speaker 1: You know, it's been corruption from the beginning. But it
[7:59] Speaker 1: is very dangerous indeed, spiritually speaking, to disaffiliate from this
[8:07] Speaker 1: transcendent source of meaning to one's life. Nothing will lock
[8:12] Speaker 1: you into place more disastrously than a disaffiliation from God.
[8:20] Speaker 1: I see. I think one way to look at this
[8:23] Speaker 1: is this is the treasure buried in the field. That's
[8:26] Speaker 1: what Paul's talking about. You don't belong to yourself, and
[8:31] Speaker 1: when you discover that, that's when you begin to live
[8:35] Speaker 1: for the first time. That's why you should sell everything
[8:38] Speaker 1: you've got and buy that field. When you discover your
[8:42] Speaker 1: moral purpose, that you're here to serve something way beyond
[8:46] Speaker 1: your little ego and its needs, that's when you that's
[8:50] Speaker 1: when you come to life. That's the pearl of great price.
[8:55] Speaker 1: You've been looking for it and you think you're going
[8:58] Speaker 1: to find it in the goods of the world that
[9:00] Speaker 1: serve the ego. There there's my famous you know, wealth, pleasure, honor, power,
[9:06] Speaker 1: But that's what that is. Is you're on this quest
[9:08] Speaker 1: to find things that will satisfy your ego. All you
[9:11] Speaker 1: are at that point is a kind of advanced adolescent.
[9:15] Speaker 1: Maybe you're using all of your intellectual powers, but you're
[9:18] Speaker 1: serving fundamentally adolescent ends. Think you hear everybody of all
[9:24] Speaker 1: the hero stories, and you know, we still love them.
[9:27] Speaker 1: Many of the most popular movies are about that. What
[9:29] Speaker 1: do they always hinge upon? Persin for the moment? From
[9:32] Speaker 1: all the special effects and all the you know, whiz
[9:35] Speaker 1: band computer stuff, what are those stories always about? They're
[9:39] Speaker 1: about a self regarding person who's living in a very
[9:44] Speaker 1: small spiritual space, becoming someone who breaks free of that
[9:50] Speaker 1: precisely in love and service to higher goods and higher powers.
[9:59] Speaker 1: Only when you break out of that self regard to
[10:01] Speaker 1: serve your family, or your community or the wider society
[10:06] Speaker 1: are ultimately the purposes of God. That's when you come alive.
[10:11] Speaker 1: That's when you become a hero listen, who can really
[10:15] Speaker 1: be of help to those around him. See, the permanent
[10:20] Speaker 1: adolescence of our society is leading to all kinds of trouble,
[10:24] Speaker 1: both in here, yes, because you never come to maturity,
[10:30] Speaker 1: but also to others because you're here in a way
[10:34] Speaker 1: to serve them. And if you're caught in this sort
[10:37] Speaker 1: of adolescent feedback loop, well then you're not accomplishing the
[10:41] Speaker 1: good you've been placed here to accomplish. How Come the
[10:45] Speaker 1: society in many ways is coming apart because everybody living
[10:50] Speaker 1: in this permanent adolescence is not performing their mission, not
[10:54] Speaker 1: finding their mission. I said this recently, maybe it was
[10:58] Speaker 1: over it at World Youth Day in Lisbon. Safe spaces,
[11:05] Speaker 1: you know, we're obsessed with those, a place where I
[11:07] Speaker 1: can feel safe again. I'm not again safety. There's got
[11:11] Speaker 1: to be a modicum of safety if we're going to
[11:13] Speaker 1: be psychologically, you know, together, But see how childish a
[11:17] Speaker 1: desire that is. That's what children need and want is safety.
[11:22] Speaker 1: But I said to the young people in World Youth day,
[11:25] Speaker 1: a religion that places before our eyes someone who is
[11:29] Speaker 1: nailed to a cross is not a religion putting a
[11:34] Speaker 1: huge premium on safety. What do we put a premium
[11:39] Speaker 1: upon accepting adventure? Spiritual adventure following God's will? Dangerous? Uh huh?
[11:49] Speaker 1: Almost by definition requiring real courage, yes, hard, invariably involving
[11:59] Speaker 1: the fact that your life is not about you. Absolutely,
[12:03] Speaker 1: the very things the initiation rituals are meant to accomplish,
[12:08] Speaker 1: preparing us for the acceptance of this mission. Can I
[12:12] Speaker 1: close with this? This is when I was out in California,
[12:15] Speaker 1: I saw this sign. I think they were debating euthanasia
[12:18] Speaker 1: or something at the time, and there was a big
[12:20] Speaker 1: sign along the highway said this my life, my death,
[12:26] Speaker 1: my choice. That's that's our modern culture. Yep, that's it.
[12:32] Speaker 1: It's my life, it's my death, it's my choice. Do
[12:36] Speaker 1: you see, everybody, first, how how tiny that spiritual space
[12:40] Speaker 1: is and how repugnant it is to what we hear
[12:45] Speaker 1: in Romans fourteen. Again, none of us lives for oneself.
[12:51] Speaker 1: No one dies for oneself. For if we live, we
[12:55] Speaker 1: live for the Lord. If we die, we die for
[12:58] Speaker 1: the Lord. So then whether you live or die, we
[13:01] Speaker 1: are the Lords. What's the Christian answer to this? It's
[13:04] Speaker 1: not my life, it's not my death, and it's not
[13:08] Speaker 1: my choice. I've been bought and at a price, and
[13:13] Speaker 1: I belong to this higher power, Jesus Christ living his
[13:18] Speaker 1: life in me. And that's an invitation to real spiritual
[13:24] Speaker 1: maturity and real spiritual adventure. And God bless you.

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