# Its Time for Some Pruning - Bishop Barron's Daily Sermon

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 13 Aug 2026, 15 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72754559/its_time_for_some_pruning_bishop_barron_s_sunday_sermon.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you friends. We come to the fifth
[0:02] Speaker 1: Sunday of Easter, and boy, the gospel is so powerful
[0:05] Speaker 1: from the Gospel of John because it speaks this truth.
[0:08] Speaker 1: And I've talked about it a lot before, but it's
[0:11] Speaker 1: what's distinctive really to Christianity. The Lord Jesus Christ is
[0:15] Speaker 1: not a teacher from a distant age, not someone we
[0:17] Speaker 1: remember fondly from long ago, not a moral exemplar. I mean,
[0:21] Speaker 1: who cares if that's all he is. Rather, John is
[0:25] Speaker 1: particularly good at presenting this. Jesus is like a field
[0:29] Speaker 1: of force. Jesus is a life force. We don't just
[0:34] Speaker 1: listen to him or imitate him. We live in him.
[0:40] Speaker 1: Think of the very fact that he gives us his
[0:42] Speaker 1: body to eat and his blood to drink. We remain
[0:48] Speaker 1: in him. Well, the Gospel today gives us one of
[0:51] Speaker 1: the most beautiful and powerful images for this. Listen. You
[0:56] Speaker 1: know in John's Gospel he says I am all the
[0:58] Speaker 1: time because he's imitating the ago a me the I
[1:01] Speaker 1: am who I am from the Book of Exodus. So
[1:04] Speaker 1: the divinity of Jesus being affirmed again and again. But
[1:07] Speaker 1: here's a famous one. I am the true Vine, and
[1:13] Speaker 1: you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I
[1:19] Speaker 1: in him will bear much fruit, and anyone who does
[1:24] Speaker 1: not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch.
[1:27] Speaker 1: And whither how organic all that is. We're not talking
[1:31] Speaker 1: about bland imitation taking into teaching the way I would
[1:36] Speaker 1: from any you know, inspiring figure. Now I'm talking about
[1:39] Speaker 1: a life force that we're grafted onto, Jesus, and he's meant,
[1:44] Speaker 1: now listen, to live his life in us. That's the
[1:50] Speaker 1: intimacy that stands at the heart of Christianity. That's why,
[1:55] Speaker 1: to this day the Church too is so organic in
[1:58] Speaker 1: the way it understands. Why, hey, the Eucharist is the
[2:01] Speaker 1: source in someone of the Christian life. Why it matters
[2:04] Speaker 1: that we come to Mass and we eat his body
[2:07] Speaker 1: and drink his blood, all of that, all of that. So,
[2:12] Speaker 1: with that organic image very much in mind, listen to
[2:14] Speaker 1: this as he elaborates upon it. My father is the
[2:20] Speaker 1: vine grower. So Jesus is the vine we're grafted on
[2:24] Speaker 1: as the branches. The vine grower is the father. Now listen,
[2:29] Speaker 1: he takes away every branch in me that does not
[2:33] Speaker 1: bear fruit. So you say, how wonderful all this organic imagery,
[2:38] Speaker 1: How beautiful. Yeah, but there's kind of a dark side
[2:41] Speaker 1: to it as well. Why because well, the Father is
[2:47] Speaker 1: the vine grower, and what he's going to do is
[2:50] Speaker 1: he's going to prune away all that is in us
[2:55] Speaker 1: that is preventing the life of Christ from manifest itself.
[3:01] Speaker 1: So you're a branch grafting out of the vine. Okay.
[3:04] Speaker 1: And Christ is meant to live his life in you.
[3:07] Speaker 1: But but there are things in all of us sinners
[3:12] Speaker 1: that are preventing that life to express itself. And any
[3:17] Speaker 1: good gardener knows this. There's something kind of tough and
[3:21] Speaker 1: brutal about gardening because there's a lot of cutting and
[3:23] Speaker 1: slicing that goes on. If you want these plants to flourish,
[3:27] Speaker 1: you can't just leave them alone. Hey, God is love
[3:30] Speaker 1: and I am doing okay, just let me no, no, no.
[3:33] Speaker 1: The Father is very interested in you being fully alive,
[3:38] Speaker 1: so certain things have got to be cut away. So
[3:43] Speaker 1: can I suggest everybody this would be a really good
[3:45] Speaker 1: for all of us sinners as a kind of spiritual
[3:48] Speaker 1: exercise this week and light of this gospel. What are
[3:52] Speaker 1: those things in us that need pruning that should be
[3:59] Speaker 1: cut away that if we're honest, we know are preventing
[4:04] Speaker 1: the life of Christ fully to express itself in us.
[4:09] Speaker 1: Can I mention just a couple. Here's the first one.
[4:14] Speaker 1: Is there an old resentment that you're clinging to. There's
[4:21] Speaker 1: someone who wounded you. There's a pain in your life,
[4:25] Speaker 1: and you are still angry at this person. You are
[4:29] Speaker 1: still resentful, you still want revenge, and this resentment is
[4:36] Speaker 1: kind of eating away at you. It's like a superating wound.
[4:42] Speaker 1: You know your life is going along okay, but you know,
[4:45] Speaker 1: you know this thing is draining you of life and energy.
[4:50] Speaker 1: I'd be willing to bet every person listening to me
[4:53] Speaker 1: right now could name a resentment like that. Okay, how
[4:58] Speaker 1: about during this easter sea and prune it away? Make
[5:04] Speaker 1: that phone call, write that note, send an email, reach
[5:11] Speaker 1: out to this person, offer forgiveness. It's hard, y, say,
[5:16] Speaker 1: I know it's hard. That's why it's called pruning. That's
[5:20] Speaker 1: why it's of course is painful, but it will allow
[5:25] Speaker 1: the life of Christ to surge more fully through you.
[5:30] Speaker 1: So an old resentment, take a look at it. Here's
[5:34] Speaker 1: the second one. And I confront this all the time
[5:38] Speaker 1: in my internet work, especially among younger people. Is there
[5:42] Speaker 1: a soul killing secularism that's taken root in you. You
[5:49] Speaker 1: know what I mean. You lost contact with the transcendent,
[5:53] Speaker 1: You lost contact with the sacred, with the Holy, with
[5:57] Speaker 1: God your whole life. It's just about this world, just
[6:03] Speaker 1: about what you can accomplish here, just about the pleasures
[6:06] Speaker 1: and honors and so on that can accrude you in
[6:08] Speaker 1: this world. And don't you know deep down that having
[6:15] Speaker 1: taken this path, you find yourself in a state of
[6:19] Speaker 1: very deep soul sadness. Because we're not meant to be
[6:25] Speaker 1: satisfied simply by the goods of the world. And when
[6:28] Speaker 1: we cut off contact with a transcendent, we stop praying,
[6:31] Speaker 1: we stop going to mass, we stop attending the sacraments.
[6:35] Speaker 1: What happens is it's like a cancer eating away at
[6:38] Speaker 1: the soul. Carl Bart the great Protestant theologian from the
[6:44] Speaker 1: last century, he said, the besetting mortal sin of our
[6:50] Speaker 1: time is not pride. Rather, it's sloth. It's spiritual laziness.
[6:58] Speaker 1: It's a kind of spiritual boredom. And can I say
[7:03] Speaker 1: I sense it all the time, especially among the young
[7:06] Speaker 1: who have disaffiliated from the church. When we lose contact
[7:11] Speaker 1: with a transcendent, something is drying up in US. Okay, okay,
[7:16] Speaker 1: how about during this Easter season. That's something we can
[7:20] Speaker 1: prune away. Now's the time to come back to mass
[7:26] Speaker 1: Now's the time to start praying again. I think there's
[7:29] Speaker 1: an old rosary that your grandmother gave you. It's gathering
[7:33] Speaker 1: dust in a drawer. Take it out, Take it out,
[7:37] Speaker 1: Attend to God, Attend to that still small voice of
[7:40] Speaker 1: your own conscience. Prune away this soul killing secularism. Here's
[7:48] Speaker 1: the third one. And can I be kind of blunt
[7:49] Speaker 1: about this. Pornography is a curse in our society. So
[7:58] Speaker 1: I can almost almost sense it even through the camera.
[8:01] Speaker 1: Whenever I'm preaching or speaking and I mentioned the word pornography,
[8:05] Speaker 1: there's suddenly this very intense silence in the room. It's
[8:09] Speaker 1: because it's so widely used and so widely available. It's
[8:16] Speaker 1: a multi billion dollar industry in our country alone. The Internet,
[8:21] Speaker 1: of course, has increased its range, its availability, and hence
[8:27] Speaker 1: it's awful addictive power. You know, years ago it would
[8:32] Speaker 1: be relatively difficult to come by pornography. Now young kids
[8:36] Speaker 1: can get it cost free on their smartphones. And as
[8:41] Speaker 1: I say, it's it's designed to be addicting, and so
[8:45] Speaker 1: young people, often from a very early age, find themselves
[8:49] Speaker 1: addicted to it. And anyone that's caught in the grip
[8:54] Speaker 1: of that addiction, what do you know that it's just soul.
[9:01] Speaker 1: De humanizes those who produce it, it denigrates those who
[9:06] Speaker 1: use it. It's often tied up with human trafficking. It's
[9:10] Speaker 1: often tied up with abusive young people. Don't even try
[9:15] Speaker 1: to tell me it's a victimless crime. It's not. Has
[9:20] Speaker 1: pornography taken a grip on your soul? It has for
[9:24] Speaker 1: a lot of people in our society. All right, If
[9:28] Speaker 1: it has, here's the time for some pruning. Here's the
[9:33] Speaker 1: time for some pruning to cut that out of your life.
[9:37] Speaker 1: You know. Here's the last observation about it. Some exorcists
[9:41] Speaker 1: that I know and whom I trust have said that
[9:44] Speaker 1: it's one of the Dark Power's favorite ways to get
[9:48] Speaker 1: into someone's soul. The devil has to wait for a
[9:52] Speaker 1: door to open, right, He hasn't become barging in. He
[9:55] Speaker 1: waits for us to open a door. And one of
[9:57] Speaker 1: those doors, these exorcists tell me, is pornography, which is
[10:01] Speaker 1: why the Dark Power is so much at work. Can
[10:07] Speaker 1: I mentioned this a couple more has avarice and materialism
[10:13] Speaker 1: taken hold of your soul? And a very old problem,
[10:17] Speaker 1: And the Bible's very clear by that's why the love
[10:19] Speaker 1: of money, we're told, is the root of all evil avarice.
[10:24] Speaker 1: It's being so caught up in nice things, the good
[10:28] Speaker 1: things of the world, that it becomes a preoccupation. What
[10:34] Speaker 1: happens when you allow averice to take hold, is it
[10:37] Speaker 1: cuts you off from all these other moral and spiritual values.
[10:42] Speaker 1: That's the King Midas story. You know that everything you
[10:45] Speaker 1: touches turns to gold, how wonderful? Well, no, it ends
[10:49] Speaker 1: up killing the very things that you love the most.
[10:53] Speaker 1: Has avarice taken control of you? A sort of gross materialism.
[11:00] Speaker 1: If it has, it's time for some pruning. You need
[11:05] Speaker 1: to cut that out of your life, because it's going
[11:07] Speaker 1: to kill the soul at the end of the day.
[11:11] Speaker 1: Here's the last one, and again very much with Pope
[11:13] Speaker 1: Francis in mind, because he's very strong on this. To
[11:18] Speaker 1: what extent has gossiping become a soul killing activity? I mean,
[11:26] Speaker 1: I think we're all guilty, you know, gossiping talking about
[11:31] Speaker 1: people in a mean spirited way. It's like our favorite
[11:35] Speaker 1: indoor pastime. That's what most of us human beings do
[11:39] Speaker 1: much of the time when we get together. You know,
[11:41] Speaker 1: we'll talk about maybe bland, neutral things for a while,
[11:45] Speaker 1: but watch it, watch your own conversations. Pretty soon, nine
[11:51] Speaker 1: times out of ten we will start turning toward gossiping
[11:54] Speaker 1: about other people, stealing their reputation. I'd put it there
[12:01] Speaker 1: under the rubric of the seventh commandment, I shall not steal.
[12:05] Speaker 1: We can steal physical things from people. The far more
[12:08] Speaker 1: terrible really is stealing someone's reputation. That's what you're doing
[12:12] Speaker 1: when you gossip behind their back, surreptitiously. You're robbing them
[12:18] Speaker 1: of their good name. I think it's time, in light
[12:25] Speaker 1: of this gospel, to do a searching moral inventory about gossiping.
[12:31] Speaker 1: How much time do you spend and maybe even you know,
[12:35] Speaker 1: keeping an eye on your own soul. Watch yourself for
[12:37] Speaker 1: about a week, keep track of all the times you
[12:41] Speaker 1: were drawn into it or tempted to gossip. Keep track
[12:44] Speaker 1: of it. City Nation of Iola recommends we do that.
[12:48] Speaker 1: As we examine our conscience, we find those things that
[12:50] Speaker 1: are particularly bad, and let's keep a careful tabulation of
[12:55] Speaker 1: them good. I'd recommend that see how often you're tempted
[12:59] Speaker 1: to gossip. Now let me close with this. I've been
[13:03] Speaker 1: talking about doing the pruning fair enough, but what Jesus says,
[13:07] Speaker 1: not so much. We do the pruning, Your heavenly Father
[13:12] Speaker 1: does the pruning. So the move that we should make
[13:15] Speaker 1: is very important. Is maybe it's one of the things
[13:18] Speaker 1: I mentioned, maybe it's something else, but name those things
[13:22] Speaker 1: in you that are stopping the flow of Christ's life
[13:27] Speaker 1: in you, and then in prayer, turn them over to
[13:33] Speaker 1: the Great keeper of the vine. Turn them over to
[13:39] Speaker 1: God the Father. In prayer, Lord, prune these things out
[13:44] Speaker 1: of my life. Trust me, see he will. We can
[13:48] Speaker 1: ask for all kinds of extraneous things that God may
[13:51] Speaker 1: or may not give them to us, but He will
[13:54] Speaker 1: always give us the gift of the Holy Spirit. And
[13:58] Speaker 1: that's really what you're asking for when you say, Hey, Lord,
[14:00] Speaker 1: here's this thing in my life that I know is
[14:03] Speaker 1: stopping Christ from living in me. Prune it away, prune
[14:09] Speaker 1: it away, make that prayer, id identify the pain, identify
[14:15] Speaker 1: what this thing is, and then actively turn that over
[14:19] Speaker 1: to God the Father and God bless you.

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