# Why Mary Matters - Bishop Barron's Daily Sermon

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

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/73920862/why_mary_matters_bishop_barron_s_sunday_sermon.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you, friends, we come to the fourth
[0:03] Speaker 1: Sunday of Advent. We're now coming to the culmination of
[0:06] Speaker 1: our preparation for Christmas. And the churches introduced us to
[0:09] Speaker 1: a number of Advent figures in Isaiah, John the Baptist,
[0:12] Speaker 1: et cetera. But we come on this fourth Sunday to
[0:16] Speaker 1: the Advent figure par excellence. So as we're preparing for
[0:21] Speaker 1: the coming of Christ, this is the figure who matters
[0:24] Speaker 1: the most, and it's of course the Blessed Mother, Mary,
[0:28] Speaker 1: the Mother of God. Now, I know in Catholic Protestant
[0:32] Speaker 1: polemics over the past, you know, five hundred years, there's
[0:35] Speaker 1: been a lot of talk about Mary. And you know,
[0:37] Speaker 1: you Catholics are obsessed with Mary, and you worship her
[0:40] Speaker 1: and she takes the place of Jesus. And of course
[0:42] Speaker 1: all that is so much nonsense. There's no worship of Mary.
[0:46] Speaker 1: Every Catholic knows Mary isn't God, She's not Christ. At
[0:50] Speaker 1: the same time, there is within the Catholic spiritual and
[0:53] Speaker 1: theological framework a sort of marry in maximalism. I mean,
[0:57] Speaker 1: we want to say a lot about the Blessed Mother.
[1:00] Speaker 1: And if maryon maximell lives on the table, I plead
[1:03] Speaker 1: guilty as charged. Now here's why, here's why. So again,
[1:07] Speaker 1: without mistaking for a second, She's not Jesus, she's not God,
[1:11] Speaker 1: none of that. However, if the Christian life is all
[1:16] Speaker 1: about Christ coming to birth in us, right, it's all
[1:21] Speaker 1: about Christ coming to dwell and to live in us.
[1:25] Speaker 1: Who are the two figures responsible for the coming of
[1:28] Speaker 1: Christ in history? The answer is the Holy Spirit and
[1:33] Speaker 1: the blessed Virgin Mary. Right, so we believe in Jesus
[1:37] Speaker 1: Christ has only son, our Lord, conceived by the Holy
[1:40] Speaker 1: Spirit and incarnate of the Virgin Mary. There's the ancient
[1:45] Speaker 1: Nicene creed. So not some recent Catholic development has a
[1:50] Speaker 1: very old statement of Christian faith. The Lord is conceived
[1:54] Speaker 1: by the Holy Spirit and incarnate of the Virgin Mary.
[2:00] Speaker 1: Figures responsible for the birth of Christ are the Holy
[2:03] Speaker 1: Spirit of God and the Blessed Mother. Well, our spiritual
[2:06] Speaker 1: tradition teaches the same two figures remain the essential ones
[2:11] Speaker 1: when it comes to Christ being born in us, the
[2:15] Speaker 1: Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother. And so do we
[2:18] Speaker 1: take her seriously yes, indeed, simply as an inspiring example
[2:23] Speaker 1: from long ago. No, no, no, no, as someone who
[2:26] Speaker 1: is actively present in our spiritual lives today. So what
[2:32] Speaker 1: I want to do in this homily is look at
[2:34] Speaker 1: some of these classical titles of Mary the Church is used,
[2:39] Speaker 1: and to see them not just as sort of pious exclamations.
[2:44] Speaker 1: You know. I get that, And sometimes people in their
[2:46] Speaker 1: piety will just they'll say, you know, extravagant things. No. No,
[2:50] Speaker 1: the Church means something very substantive when it uses this
[2:53] Speaker 1: exalted language of Mary. So here's the first one. And
[2:58] Speaker 1: this is very ancient. It goes back to a figure
[3:00] Speaker 1: like Ierineus of Lyons Ieronaeus, who dies around the year
[3:04] Speaker 1: two hundred. He's writing in the second half of the
[3:07] Speaker 1: second century. So again, this is no recent Catholic accretion.
[3:12] Speaker 1: This is a very ancient idea that Mary is the
[3:17] Speaker 1: new Eve, the new Eve, now Eve in the Bible,
[3:22] Speaker 1: the mother of all the living. Who's Mary. She's the
[3:26] Speaker 1: mother of all those who are now living life in Christ.
[3:31] Speaker 1: She's the mother of the spiritual life in us. That
[3:35] Speaker 1: wonderful thing. Maybe I share it with you already. Of again,
[3:38] Speaker 1: an ancient idea is that the ava Eva for Eve
[3:42] Speaker 1: is reversed by the ave a ve that the angel
[3:46] Speaker 1: says to Mary, think of the old Eve who succumbs
[3:52] Speaker 1: the temptation of a fallen angel. The new Eve who
[3:56] Speaker 1: acquiesces to the invitation of a holy think of the
[4:01] Speaker 1: great yes to self. In the old Eve, you know,
[4:08] Speaker 1: I'll do things my way. I'm going to grasp with
[4:10] Speaker 1: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And
[4:12] Speaker 1: then Mary, who doesn't do that, but rather says, let
[4:16] Speaker 1: it be done to me according to your word. The
[4:19] Speaker 1: idea here is that Mary the ave Ava is she
[4:23] Speaker 1: reverses the momentum of the old Eve. Very powerful. She's
[4:30] Speaker 1: also called, and it's an ancient title recognized by the
[4:34] Speaker 1: Church fathers Iran as is a good example. She's recognized
[4:37] Speaker 1: as the true arc of the Covenant. Now see with
[4:41] Speaker 1: that in mind, read the Gospel for Today for the
[4:44] Speaker 1: fourth Sunday of Advent, because it's full of these Arc
[4:47] Speaker 1: of the Covenant themes. The Arc, of course, was the
[4:50] Speaker 1: receptacle for the Ten Commandments. It goes back to Israel's
[4:53] Speaker 1: wandering in the desert. It was carried in battle, carried
[4:56] Speaker 1: with Israel. Eventually, King David finds the Ark in the
[5:02] Speaker 1: hill country of Judah, and then he escorts it back
[5:05] Speaker 1: into his holy city, where it becomes the central peace
[5:09] Speaker 1: of the temple. Right, all of that, all of that,
[5:12] Speaker 1: what do we hear in the Gospel for today, which
[5:14] Speaker 1: is the story of the visitation, But that Mary proceeds
[5:19] Speaker 1: in haste to the hill country of Judah, that's where
[5:24] Speaker 1: Elizabeth lives. But see any attentive reader in the first
[5:27] Speaker 1: century would he said, Ah, the hill country of Judah,
[5:30] Speaker 1: that's the place where the Ark of the Covenant was.
[5:33] Speaker 1: And so Mary, bearing within her own body, the presence
[5:37] Speaker 1: of Christ is the Ark of the Covenant in the
[5:40] Speaker 1: fullest sense. A beautiful detail. And again the church Father
[5:44] Speaker 1: saw it. Is Elizabeth says, hey, the minute you're greeting,
[5:48] Speaker 1: sound in my ears, the baby in my womb leapt
[5:51] Speaker 1: for joy. So the infant John the Baptist leaps for joy. Well,
[5:55] Speaker 1: the church Father saw this that just as David danced
[5:58] Speaker 1: with exuberance before for the Ark, so the unborn John
[6:03] Speaker 1: the Baptist dances with exuberance in the presence of the Ark.
[6:08] Speaker 1: There's all these wonderful Davidic themes developed. Now as we
[6:12] Speaker 1: talk about Mary, speaking of which I love this from
[6:17] Speaker 1: the Great Litany of Loretto, look it up online. This
[6:21] Speaker 1: this litany of titles of the Blessed Mother, and one
[6:24] Speaker 1: of them, beautifully is tourists to Vitica Tower of David.
[6:30] Speaker 1: Tower of David was meant to signal all these David associations.
[6:34] Speaker 1: But the Tower of David in Jerusalem was a symbol
[6:38] Speaker 1: of strength. It was a fortification, a way of defending
[6:44] Speaker 1: the Holy city. Who's Mary, the Mother of Christ within us?
[6:50] Speaker 1: She's a warrior in the spiritual battle. Maybe we don't
[6:55] Speaker 1: talk about this as much as we should, but we
[6:57] Speaker 1: are up against enemies we can see, yes indeed, but
[7:01] Speaker 1: also against enemies that we can't see. In a way,
[7:04] Speaker 1: the spiritual life is always this struggle of this battle.
[7:08] Speaker 1: Are there invisible powers that are trying to undermine our
[7:12] Speaker 1: relationship with the Lord? Yes? Yes, Now whom can we
[7:16] Speaker 1: bring into this battle? Mary? Who is a warrior figure.
[7:24] Speaker 1: I've had this from an exorcist that I know, and
[7:28] Speaker 1: they say, the demons they're terrified of her. Think of
[7:34] Speaker 1: the rosary carry it with you, by the way, But
[7:38] Speaker 1: think of that rosary as a kind of weapon in
[7:40] Speaker 1: a spiritual war, when you can call upon the power
[7:44] Speaker 1: of the Blessed Mother. Think of the fact too, everybody
[7:47] Speaker 1: that Israel brought the Ark of the Covenant into battle well,
[7:52] Speaker 1: if Mary is the ark of the Covenant par excellence,
[7:55] Speaker 1: then we should continue bringing her into battle. She's the
[7:59] Speaker 1: tour Is Davidica, the Tower of David. She's also called
[8:05] Speaker 1: Beautifully and John, Paul the Second and Francis have really
[8:08] Speaker 1: emphasized this. She's called the Mater ecclesier. She's the mother
[8:13] Speaker 1: of the church. I see here, I'd use the reflection
[8:17] Speaker 1: of one of my favorite theologians, Hans Ris von Baltazar,
[8:21] Speaker 1: where he said there are three basic forms of ecclesial life.
[8:25] Speaker 1: There's the petrine Peter that's the role of office. There's
[8:29] Speaker 1: the Pauline associated with Saint Paul, that's all about preaching
[8:33] Speaker 1: and teaching and evangelizing, engaging the culture. Then there's the
[8:37] Speaker 1: Johannine associated with Saint John who rested his head on
[8:41] Speaker 1: the breast of the Lord, who is the beloved Disciple.
[8:44] Speaker 1: It stands for the prayerful, mystical, liturgical dimension of the
[8:49] Speaker 1: church's life. Okay, Petrine, Pauline, Johannine. But all of them,
[8:54] Speaker 1: all of them, Baltazar says, rest in or kind of
[8:58] Speaker 1: nest in the primordial Marian form. The Marian form is
[9:05] Speaker 1: the great. Yes, it's the fiat right, let it be
[9:09] Speaker 1: done to me. It's the acquiescence to the divine will
[9:13] Speaker 1: that undergirds and informs all the other forms of church life.
[9:18] Speaker 1: In that sense, she is the mater ecclesier. She's the mother,
[9:22] Speaker 1: the matrix if you want, of all of us who
[9:26] Speaker 1: are involved in the life of the church. Here's what
[9:29] Speaker 1: I love. Also from the Litany of Loretto, she's called
[9:33] Speaker 1: the Mother of good counsel. When I was in the
[9:36] Speaker 1: seminary of years ago, one of my first pastoral assignments
[9:39] Speaker 1: as a seminarian was our Lady of Good Counsel Parish.
[9:42] Speaker 1: I've always had that title in my mind since good
[9:45] Speaker 1: counsel is Mary a warrior in the spiritual life, uh huh.
[9:50] Speaker 1: But she's also someone who guides us and gives us
[9:55] Speaker 1: counsel and direction in the spiritual life. So you know,
[9:59] Speaker 1: sometimes in Prairie just say Lord, I don't know what
[10:02] Speaker 1: to do here. I don't know what's the right move.
[10:05] Speaker 1: I've been trying to figure this out, but I'm a
[10:07] Speaker 1: little bit lost. At those moments, everybody turned to Mary
[10:12] Speaker 1: under this title of our Lady of good counsel, who'll
[10:16] Speaker 1: give direction to us, guide us in the spiritual moral order.
[10:23] Speaker 1: You know, it's related to to that lovely title that
[10:25] Speaker 1: Mary is the seeds Appienier, She's the seat of wisdom,
[10:31] Speaker 1: and that's often depicted like literally when the Christ child
[10:34] Speaker 1: is sitting on her lap, she becomes herself like a
[10:37] Speaker 1: throne for wisdom. But it means Mary is the kind
[10:41] Speaker 1: of she's the model of the wise person. That means
[10:45] Speaker 1: someone who is reflecting upon the things of God and
[10:50] Speaker 1: relentlessly seeing life through the lens of God's will and purpose.
[10:54] Speaker 1: I would define it that way. The seat of wisdom
[10:58] Speaker 1: turned to her under that title, Mary, see to wisdom.
[11:02] Speaker 1: Help me to understand what it is God wants me
[11:05] Speaker 1: to do. She'll give good counsel to you. Here's one
[11:11] Speaker 1: you know that Pope Francis has revived for us. They
[11:15] Speaker 1: say when he was a doctoral student over in Germany
[11:18] Speaker 1: back in I guess the nineteen seventies or early eighties maybe,
[11:21] Speaker 1: and he was roaming around the German countryside and he
[11:25] Speaker 1: found this church with a painting, and the painting was
[11:29] Speaker 1: of Mary, the Undoer of Knots, and it just depicts Mary.
[11:33] Speaker 1: They're surrounded by angels and there's a string with all
[11:36] Speaker 1: kinds of knots in it and they're feeding it to her,
[11:39] Speaker 1: and then she's just very patiently trying to undo, and
[11:45] Speaker 1: then it's passed on. Other angels are here now and
[11:48] Speaker 1: they get the you know, the strands as it's undone. Well,
[11:54] Speaker 1: it struck young Joge Mario Bagolio as a beautiful image,
[11:57] Speaker 1: and then as pope, he's made it popular around the world.
[12:00] Speaker 1: And I must say it's one that I love too,
[12:03] Speaker 1: because that's life, isn't it. It often presents itself as
[12:08] Speaker 1: a series of knots, you know, this knotty complicated situation
[12:14] Speaker 1: involving all sorts of when you have to undo a
[12:18] Speaker 1: really tight, complex knot, and it takes patience, which I
[12:26] Speaker 1: don't have. It's not one of my virtues, trust me,
[12:29] Speaker 1: and so I will get frustrated trying to undo a knot.
[12:33] Speaker 1: Well in this painting, Mary with kind of infinite serenity
[12:37] Speaker 1: and patience, is just slowly undoing it. When you find
[12:41] Speaker 1: yourself faced with one of these things, invoke Mary, who's
[12:45] Speaker 1: the seed of wisdom, mother good counsel, Mother of the Church,
[12:50] Speaker 1: and also the undoer of nots. Is Holy Mary, Mother
[12:54] Speaker 1: of God, help me just to deal with this problem.
[12:57] Speaker 1: You do it you do it. That act in prayer
[13:01] Speaker 1: of just handing a problem over to Mary, I think
[13:05] Speaker 1: is a beautiful thing. Maybe get an image of that Mary,
[13:09] Speaker 1: undoer of nots and put it in your prayer book.
[13:11] Speaker 1: And I'll just close with this. Most importantly, when we
[13:16] Speaker 1: invoke Mary under this title, every time we pray the
[13:18] Speaker 1: Hail Mary, Holy Mary, Mother of God. It was the
[13:23] Speaker 1: counsel of Ephesus, you know, four thirty one that gave
[13:26] Speaker 1: Mary this title, theo tacos in the Greek, that she's
[13:30] Speaker 1: the bearer of God. Again, not some recent Catholic development,
[13:33] Speaker 1: is a very ancient idea that Mary she's the mother
[13:37] Speaker 1: of Christ. Christ is God. Therefore Mary is the mother
[13:40] Speaker 1: of God. That's why she's so central along with the
[13:46] Speaker 1: Holy Spirit. She's the one who brings Christ, the Son
[13:51] Speaker 1: of God, to birth in us. So maybe take out
[13:55] Speaker 1: your rosary, if you haven't prayed for a long time,
[13:57] Speaker 1: maybe find a holy with Mary on it. In a
[14:02] Speaker 1: conscious way, everybody as advent now is coming to its clothes.
[14:05] Speaker 1: Christmas is coming close. Invoke Mary, the Mother of God,
[14:10] Speaker 1: our lady of good, counsel, mother of the Church, undoer
[14:14] Speaker 1: of nods. Ask her to bring Christ to birth in you,
[14:19] Speaker 1: and God bless you.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.