# God Enters Into Our Darkness - Bishop Barron Sermons

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 14 Sep 2026, 15 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75098740/god_enters_into_our_darkness_bishop_barron_s_sunday_sermons.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you. Friends, we come now to Palm Sunday,
[0:03] Speaker 1: also called Passion Sunday, one of the great highlights of
[0:07] Speaker 1: the liturgical year. Passion Sunday because on every Palm Sunday,
[0:10] Speaker 1: we read in its entirety one of the passion narratives
[0:14] Speaker 1: from the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And on
[0:18] Speaker 1: Good Friday, we always read John's passion narrative. Something I
[0:22] Speaker 1: like to do, we're in the cycle A of readings
[0:25] Speaker 1: this year, so we're reading Matthew's version. I'd like to
[0:28] Speaker 1: see now what's distinctive to this one. There's a lot
[0:32] Speaker 1: of overlap between them, but each one has distinctive qualities. Well,
[0:37] Speaker 1: what stood out to me as I looked at this, Matthew,
[0:40] Speaker 1: out of all of them, puts a stress on Judas
[0:44] Speaker 1: and more precisely on the deep regret that Judas felt
[0:50] Speaker 1: over what he had done. It doesn't entirely villainize Judas. Judas,
[0:56] Speaker 1: but in a way enters into the deep remorse that
[1:00] Speaker 1: Judas felt. Let me give you an example. Then Judas,
[1:05] Speaker 1: his betrayer, seeing that Jesus had been condemned, deeply regretted
[1:12] Speaker 1: what he had done. He returned the 30 pieces of
[1:15] Speaker 1: silver to the chief priests and elders saying, I've sinned
[1:19] Speaker 1: in betraying innocent blood. Rather extraordinary, isn't it? Uh, You know,
[1:24] Speaker 1: we think Judas, the worst possible sinner, Judas, the worst
[1:27] Speaker 1: person ever, the one that betrayed the Lord, and it's
[1:30] Speaker 1: not denied. He's called the betrayer here. But there's not
[1:34] Speaker 1: a bit of callous indifference or an ounce of self-justification.
[1:40] Speaker 1: That's what most of us sinners do. We you know, oh, no, no,
[1:43] Speaker 1: I'm not a sinner. No, no, no, I've got plenty
[1:45] Speaker 1: of excuses. Or, hey, I don't really care. I did
[1:49] Speaker 1: something wicked, but, you know, get over it. Well, there's
[1:52] Speaker 1: not an ounce of that here in Jude. It's just
[1:55] Speaker 1: the opposite. It seems a pretty clear and honest admission
[2:00] Speaker 1: of guilt. And then we're told, having flung the money
[2:05] Speaker 1: into the temple, and that's powerful. He gives back the
[2:09] Speaker 1: money that he had been rewarded for betraying the Lord.
[2:13] Speaker 1: And then it says, simply and rather awfully, he went
[2:18] Speaker 1: off and hanged himself. So, of course, familiar from all
[2:23] Speaker 1: the Gospels that Judas ends his life in this act
[2:27] Speaker 1: of self-slaughter. It just seems a terrible end to a
[2:32] Speaker 1: sad life. In, it seems, complete despair, Judas kills himself. Now,
[2:41] Speaker 1: all this combined, he's a betrayer of the Lord himself,
[2:45] Speaker 1: and then in his despair he kills himself, has convinced,
[2:49] Speaker 1: to be fair, most people in the great tradition that
[2:53] Speaker 1: Judas is in hell. If anyone's in hell, Judas would be.
[2:57] Speaker 1: Augustine thought so. Thomas Aquinas thought so. Dante, in his
[3:02] Speaker 1: famous depiction of the very pit of hell— remember, Dante
[3:06] Speaker 1: has Satan, and he has three faces— because he's a
[3:10] Speaker 1: weird simulacrum of the Trinity. And in each of the mouths,
[3:16] Speaker 1: each of the three mouths, he chews a sinner, Cassius
[3:20] Speaker 1: and Brutus, the two people that betrayed Julius Caesar. And
[3:24] Speaker 1: then in the central mouth, he chews on Judas, the
[3:28] Speaker 1: one who betrayed the Lord himself. And so there it is.
[3:32] Speaker 1: The great tradition assumes rather blithely that, well, Judas, of course,
[3:37] Speaker 1: is in hell. Well, what I'd like to do is,
[3:42] Speaker 1: without denying any of that, I mean, that's a very
[3:44] Speaker 1: strong theological opinion of the Great Tradition. Can I draw
[3:48] Speaker 1: your attention to, admittedly, it's a minority point of view,
[3:52] Speaker 1: but an alternative perspective? You can find it in one
[3:58] Speaker 1: of the most beautiful churches in Europe, the Basilica of
[4:01] Speaker 1: Vézelay in France. So not a Gothic church. It's a
[4:04] Speaker 1: kind of late Romanesque. Part of it is moving toward Gothic,
[4:08] Speaker 1: but It's one of the very finest of the Romanesque
[4:11] Speaker 1: churches in France. Gorgeous architecture. Look it up online. The
[4:15] Speaker 1: interior of Vézelay is striking. Well, in the nave of Vézelay,
[4:21] Speaker 1: there's a column. At the top of the column is
[4:24] Speaker 1: a set of carvings, a little relief, right? Well, one
[4:28] Speaker 1: of them now is of the death of Judas. And
[4:32] Speaker 1: it shows, in kind of a particularly gruesome way, the death.
[4:37] Speaker 1: hanging of Judas, and his eyes are kind of popped out,
[4:41] Speaker 1: and his tongue is lolling out of his mouth, and
[4:43] Speaker 1: there he is hanging. You say, okay, there it is,
[4:46] Speaker 1: Judas dying in despair. But then you turn, and the
[4:50] Speaker 1: next panel on the same column shows Jesus, and he's
[4:56] Speaker 1: got draped over his shoulders like the lost sheep, the
[5:01] Speaker 1: figure of Judas— the And Judas is not dead. He's alive,
[5:07] Speaker 1: and he's smiling as Jesus carries him. Well, I say
[5:13] Speaker 1: it's an unusual depiction, but a very interesting one. I'll
[5:18] Speaker 1: tell you, somebody else who found this fascinating was Pope Francis.
[5:23] Speaker 1: In fact, Pope Francis was so taken by this image
[5:25] Speaker 1: that he had a photo of it in his papal
[5:29] Speaker 1: office or his papal apartment. He was so struck. By
[5:33] Speaker 1: this image, yes, Judas killed himself. But then that next panel,
[5:40] Speaker 1: is it possible, is it possible that somehow in the
[5:46] Speaker 1: very regret of Judas, in the very sorrow that he felt,
[5:52] Speaker 1: in this keen sense that he had done something terrible
[5:54] Speaker 1: to Jesus, that Jesus found enough to save him? Because
[6:01] Speaker 1: that's the image. It's the shepherd that goes off in
[6:04] Speaker 1: search of the lost sheep and now brings him back,
[6:08] Speaker 1: both Judas and Jesus smiling in the process. Is it possible?
[6:16] Speaker 1: Is it possible that even Judas is saved? Now, I know,
[6:23] Speaker 1: don't send me letters of complaint. I get it. I'm
[6:27] Speaker 1: not advocating some easy universalism some indifferentism, everyone's saved, don't
[6:34] Speaker 1: worry about it, sin doesn't matter, deep down, Judas is
[6:38] Speaker 1: a great guy. I'm not arguing that. Universalism is the
[6:42] Speaker 1: heresy that we know for sure that all people will
[6:44] Speaker 1: be saved. We don't. We don't. God is love, yes,
[6:50] Speaker 1: but we're free, and we can Listen now, from the
[6:54] Speaker 1: very depths of our freedom, we can say no to
[6:57] Speaker 1: God's love. And that no, that resistance, raised to the
[7:02] Speaker 1: level of an absolute resistance, is what we mean by hell.
[7:06] Speaker 1: So is this a lively possibility? Yes. I'm not denying
[7:11] Speaker 1: any of that. Not denying any of it. But may
[7:15] Speaker 1: we hope, may we hope that even Judas— given this
[7:24] Speaker 1: remorse that he showed, given this keen sense that, yes,
[7:27] Speaker 1: he's a sinner, his deep regret, was that perhaps enough
[7:32] Speaker 1: for the Lord to work with and so as to
[7:35] Speaker 1: carry him back into the flock? You know, let me
[7:40] Speaker 1: say a couple things now in support of this. St.
[7:43] Speaker 1: Pope John Paul II remarked one time that there's nothing
[7:48] Speaker 1: in the Church that corresponds to canonization— On the dark side,
[7:54] Speaker 1: what I mean is, when you canonize someone, you say,
[7:58] Speaker 1: he's in heaven, she's in heaven. The Church definitively pronounces
[8:02] Speaker 1: that person's in heaven. Well, there isn't a counter-canonization where
[8:07] Speaker 1: we say, that person's definitely in hell. What about Judas? Well, yeah,
[8:13] Speaker 1: even Judas, we've never definitively said. It's not a matter
[8:17] Speaker 1: of doctrine that Judas is in hell. Something, too, from
[8:21] Speaker 1: John Paul's successor, the great Benedict XVI. He, fully acknowledging
[8:26] Speaker 1: the guilt of Judas, fully acknowledging the terrible thing that
[8:30] Speaker 1: he did, fully acknowledging even this movement toward despair at
[8:35] Speaker 1: the end of his life, said, nevertheless, it's not ours
[8:39] Speaker 1: to judge that, but we must leave Judas' fate to
[8:43] Speaker 1: the mercy and justice of God. Okay, okay. Well, you say,
[8:49] Speaker 1: all right, I guess I understand that. But look, don't
[8:52] Speaker 1: we say, if you committed suicide, you're clearly in a
[8:57] Speaker 1: state of desperation. You've despaired. You've given up on God.
[9:01] Speaker 1: And so clearly, that's a mortal sin that you've never
[9:05] Speaker 1: had a chance to get forgiven. So you're in hell, right? Well,
[9:10] Speaker 1: listen to the Catechism of the Catholic Church on this.
[9:13] Speaker 1: It's paragraph 2283. We should not despair of the eternal
[9:20] Speaker 1: salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By
[9:24] Speaker 1: ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity
[9:29] Speaker 1: for salutary repentance. So the church prays for persons who
[9:34] Speaker 1: have taken their own lives. Pretty clear, it seems to me.
[9:38] Speaker 1: You can't just say, if someone took his own life,
[9:41] Speaker 1: he's definitely in hell. No, no, you can't say that. Why?
[9:45] Speaker 1: Because ways known to him, God can provide the opportunity
[9:49] Speaker 1: for salutary repentance. Now, here's what I want you to see, everybody,
[9:53] Speaker 1: on this great day of Passion Sunday. It's not so
[9:57] Speaker 1: much the fate of Judas that I'm interested in. in here.
[10:01] Speaker 1: What I'm interested in is the radicality of God's mercy.
[10:08] Speaker 1: That's what that Veselae Capital, I think, is trying to
[10:10] Speaker 1: drive at. Yes, we can stand to thwart God. We
[10:15] Speaker 1: can say no. We can fall into the worst kinds
[10:18] Speaker 1: of sin. There's something relentless about God's pursuit of the sinner.
[10:24] Speaker 1: He's after us. He's the good shepherd looking for us
[10:28] Speaker 1: and given the slightest opportunity, able now to bring us
[10:32] Speaker 1: back to the path of grace. I'm insisting here with St.
[10:37] Speaker 1: Paul that where sin abounds, grace abounds the more. What
[10:44] Speaker 1: does the cross mean? So, on Passion Sunday, we follow
[10:47] Speaker 1: Jesus all the way down into the worst of physical suffering, yeah,
[10:54] Speaker 1: into the worst of psychological suffering, mm-hmm, and, dare I
[10:58] Speaker 1: say it, into the worst of spiritual suffering. Now, Jesus
[11:02] Speaker 1: never becomes a sinner on the cross. He's the Savior.
[11:06] Speaker 1: But the Jesus that says, God, my God, why have
[11:10] Speaker 1: you abandoned me? has moved, if I can put it
[11:14] Speaker 1: this way, into the psychological and spiritual state of someone
[11:20] Speaker 1: who's lost contact with God. Has he, in fact? No.
[11:24] Speaker 1: But does the Father allow the Son to taste, to
[11:30] Speaker 1: experience that darkness? You know, anyone that follows me knows
[11:36] Speaker 1: I love The Little Flower, and at the very end
[11:39] Speaker 1: of her life, these weren't published right away, these reflections,
[11:44] Speaker 1: that she, on her deathbed, said she felt the real
[11:49] Speaker 1: darkness of unbelief. Did she become an unbeliever? No. But
[11:54] Speaker 1: she felt it. She entered into that space. Well, see,
[11:58] Speaker 1: that's where Christ goes. That's where the saints go, into
[12:02] Speaker 1: that space. place. Why? To find those who have wandered
[12:08] Speaker 1: as far away as you can go. I'll tell you
[12:11] Speaker 1: a quick story to close. I just got this from
[12:14] Speaker 1: Father Dennis McManus, who gave us a great retreat to
[12:16] Speaker 1: our priests. There was a French couple, 19th century. She's
[12:20] Speaker 1: very religious. He's not too religious, but out of love
[12:24] Speaker 1: for her, he kind of puts up with it. And
[12:26] Speaker 1: at one point she said, can I put a picture
[12:28] Speaker 1: of the Sacred Heart over the bed? And he said, okay,
[12:31] Speaker 1: you know, if you like that sort of thing. So
[12:33] Speaker 1: they did. And then he was a depressive, and he
[12:36] Speaker 1: experienced a lot of setbacks in his life, and then
[12:39] Speaker 1: a failure in his business. And he reaches the point
[12:41] Speaker 1: of despair, and he throws himself off a building. He
[12:44] Speaker 1: commits suicide. And his wife, of course, was devastated by
[12:48] Speaker 1: this and blamed herself and terrible, and he's in hell,
[12:51] Speaker 1: and I could have stopped it. Well, in her anguish,
[12:55] Speaker 1: she goes to Ars, this little town where John Vianney
[12:58] Speaker 1: is the priest, famous priest. as a confessor, spiritual director.
[13:04] Speaker 1: And she waits in line, this long line to see him.
[13:06] Speaker 1: And she's just weeping, you know, at the altar. And
[13:10] Speaker 1: suddenly Vianney comes out of the confessional where he was.
[13:13] Speaker 1: And he calls her name. And she said, well, this
[13:16] Speaker 1: is me. And he comes over and she goes, how
[13:18] Speaker 1: do you know? How did you know my name? And
[13:20] Speaker 1: he said, don't worry about that. See, he received the
[13:23] Speaker 1: words of knowledge from the Lord. Don't worry about that.
[13:26] Speaker 1: And he said, I want you to know something. I
[13:28] Speaker 1: want you to know the Lord told me that your husband,
[13:33] Speaker 1: even as he threw himself off of the building, what
[13:36] Speaker 1: came into his mind was that picture of the sacred
[13:39] Speaker 1: heart that you put over your bed. And in that moment,
[13:43] Speaker 1: the Lord offered him the opportunity of salvation, and he
[13:46] Speaker 1: took it. Beautiful. And it gave her this great peace
[13:51] Speaker 1: of heart. Yes, can God find a way in his
[13:56] Speaker 1: providence to reach out even to those who are furthest
[13:59] Speaker 1: away from him? The same Dante, by the way, who
[14:03] Speaker 1: put Judas in the pit of hell, said that one
[14:08] Speaker 1: tear of repentance is enough to awaken the mercy of God.
[14:16] Speaker 1: Is Judas definitively lost? Well, the Church has never said so.
[14:21] Speaker 1: May we hope, everybody, because of the extravagance of Christ's mercy,
[14:27] Speaker 1: that even those who've wandered furthest away can still find hope.
[14:33] 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.