# The Summit of the Christian Life - Bishop Barron's Daily Sermons

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 18 Jul 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72733584/classic_sunday_sermon_the_summit_of_the_christian_life.mp3



## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: Please be with you friends. What is it about mountains
[0:09] Speaker 1: that's just so compelling to us? Now? Maybe it's because
[0:12] Speaker 1: I'm from Chicago, where everything is flat, but whenever I've
[0:15] Speaker 1: seen mountains, I'm just drawn to them. Remember the very
[0:19] Speaker 1: first time I went to Seattle and I saw Mount Rainier,
[0:23] Speaker 1: which is not out as they say all the time.
[0:25] Speaker 1: It's often covered in clouds, but it was brilliantly visible
[0:28] Speaker 1: that day. I don't know, I was just sort of
[0:31] Speaker 1: in an ecstasy looking at this mountain.
[0:34] Speaker 2: Whenever I'm in a plane going over.
[0:36] Speaker 1: Mountains, I'm always drawn, even from that great height, to
[0:39] Speaker 1: look at them. Here in Santa Barbara, where I'm privised
[0:42] Speaker 1: to live, we have the sea on one side and
[0:45] Speaker 1: mountains on the other, and so whenever I can't, I
[0:48] Speaker 1: look at them and I'm sort of drawn into a
[0:51] Speaker 1: into a mystical state. Well, of course, it's a great
[0:55] Speaker 1: image throughout the Bible, isn't it. The mountain where we
[0:59] Speaker 1: go up and where God comes down.
[1:02] Speaker 2: To meet us.
[1:02] Speaker 1: It's sort of a trysting place if you want, between
[1:05] Speaker 1: divinity and humanity. Well, in the prophet Isaiah, and again
[1:08] Speaker 1: we're reading from Isaiah. In our first reading, the image
[1:12] Speaker 1: of God's Holy Mountain comes up a lot. One of
[1:16] Speaker 1: my favorite passages in the whole Bible is Isaiah chapter two.
[1:19] Speaker 1: I'd urge you, by the way, get your bibles and
[1:21] Speaker 1: just open to Isaiah second.
[1:23] Speaker 2: Chapter and read it.
[1:25] Speaker 1: It's one of the most lyrical and uplifting passages in
[1:28] Speaker 1: the whole Old Testament.
[1:29] Speaker 2: But we hear that God's mountain.
[1:31] Speaker 1: Will be raised above all the mountains and hills, and
[1:35] Speaker 1: all the tribes of the Lord will go up and
[1:38] Speaker 1: on that holy mountain, We're told chapter two of Isaiah,
[1:42] Speaker 1: they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into.
[1:47] Speaker 2: Pruning hooks, and there'll be no more war on that mountain.
[1:53] Speaker 1: Well, then go a little further chapter eleven of Isaiah,
[1:57] Speaker 1: we hear once again of God's holy Mountain, but now
[2:00] Speaker 1: a little bit of a different emphasis. Here we're told
[2:02] Speaker 1: that the lion and the lamb will lie down together,
[2:07] Speaker 1: the cow and the bear will graze together. The little child,
[2:13] Speaker 1: the human child, is going to play by the adder's layer,
[2:15] Speaker 1: right by the dangerous, deadly snake. But then I'm quoting,
[2:20] Speaker 1: they will not hurt or destroy on all my mountain,
[2:24] Speaker 1: for the earth will be full of the knowledge of
[2:26] Speaker 1: the Lord.
[2:27] Speaker 2: As the waters cover the sea. It's beautiful.
[2:30] Speaker 1: So these these kind of paired you know, opposites in
[2:34] Speaker 1: the animal kingdom, will they come together in harmony on
[2:37] Speaker 1: God's Holy Mountain. Well, then, finally, our reading for today,
[2:42] Speaker 1: taken from the twenty fifth chapter of Isaiah, still another
[2:47] Speaker 1: reference to God's Holy Mountain. Listen, on this mountain, the
[2:53] Speaker 1: Lord of Hosts will provide for all.
[2:56] Speaker 3: Peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines. Juicy,
[3:03] Speaker 3: rich food and pure choice wines.
[3:08] Speaker 1: Beautiful. So three references to the Holy Mountain. Now, the
[3:12] Speaker 1: mountain in question is Mount Zion, which Isaiah knew. It's
[3:21] Speaker 1: the mountain of the city of Jerusalem, on top of
[3:24] Speaker 1: which is the Temple, the place of right praise. On
[3:31] Speaker 1: that holy mountain. Indeed, humanity goes up, Divinity comes down,
[3:36] Speaker 1: and in the great act of right praise, Divinity humanity
[3:39] Speaker 1: are linked together.
[3:40] Speaker 2: That's the mountain he's talking about.
[3:44] Speaker 1: He's also referring, it seems quite clear, not just to
[3:48] Speaker 1: that particular mountain in Palestine, but also to the mystical
[3:56] Speaker 1: mountain Zion. You might say, the heavenly fulfillment of right praise.
[4:05] Speaker 2: So clearly on Mount Zion.
[4:06] Speaker 1: Though the temple's there, and yes, right praise is taking place,
[4:09] Speaker 1: but yet it's imperfect.
[4:11] Speaker 2: You don't find all.
[4:13] Speaker 1: Of this reconciliation and all of this non violence and
[4:16] Speaker 1: peace breaking out. So Isaiah is referring to Zion, but
[4:19] Speaker 1: he's also looking forward to what mountain Zion symbolizes is
[4:25] Speaker 1: the ultimate holy mountain of our heavenly union with God.
[4:31] Speaker 2: Beautiful, beautiful. So what are things like on the mystical mountain?
[4:39] Speaker 2: What does the.
[4:40] Speaker 1: World look like when God is given fully his due? Well,
[4:46] Speaker 1: look at that first image. Conflict dies away. You see why,
[4:52] Speaker 1: when all of us together are looking away from ourselves
[4:57] Speaker 1: and our own interests and together are looking to God,
[5:02] Speaker 1: what breaks out among us?
[5:03] Speaker 2: But peace? Where does conflict come from?
[5:06] Speaker 1: I got my interest, you got your interest, And of
[5:08] Speaker 1: course they're going to conflict in this finite world.
[5:11] Speaker 2: But when together we all fall in love.
[5:15] Speaker 1: With the transcendent good of God, then peace breaks out,
[5:20] Speaker 1: and we can beat the swords into plowshares and the
[5:24] Speaker 1: spears into pruning hooks, the weapons of war becoming the
[5:27] Speaker 1: vehicles of cultivation, to the end of conflict. Then shifting
[5:34] Speaker 1: metaphors just a bit, traditional enemies and opponents symbolized by
[5:39] Speaker 1: these warring you know, animal types, the lion and lamb,
[5:43] Speaker 1: and the bear and the cow and so on.
[5:45] Speaker 2: They will come together in peace.
[5:49] Speaker 1: When glory is given to God in the highest, and
[5:52] Speaker 1: not to the self interest of my own group and
[5:56] Speaker 1: your group, defending my type against your type. See all
[6:00] Speaker 1: that's born of a self regard. But together we look
[6:04] Speaker 1: to God. The lion and lamb lie down together. That's
[6:09] Speaker 1: the mystical mountain, Zion, And then return to our reading
[6:14] Speaker 1: for today, I'm the holy mystical Mountain, the place of
[6:21] Speaker 1: definitive right praise. All of humanity will be fed so
[6:30] Speaker 1: using all this imagery borrowed from the table, you know,
[6:33] Speaker 1: pure wines and juicy meat and so on. What Isaiah
[6:38] Speaker 1: is talking about, ultimately is the feeding of the soul.
[6:43] Speaker 1: You know, Augustine saw this so clearly that the hunger
[6:45] Speaker 1: of the human heart. We all feel it. Everybody listen
[6:49] Speaker 1: to me right now, we all feel it. We're hungry
[6:55] Speaker 1: for God. Nothing in this world will satisfy the deepest
[6:58] Speaker 1: longing of the heart. Only only the total and right
[7:04] Speaker 1: praise of God feeds me adequately. That's the pure wine
[7:12] Speaker 1: and the juicy meat. But Isaiah takes us even further
[7:19] Speaker 1: as we attend to our reading for today. Listen on
[7:22] Speaker 1: that mystical mountain I'm quoting now, the veil that veils
[7:28] Speaker 1: all peoples, the web that is woven over the nations,
[7:32] Speaker 1: will be destroyed. What are you talking about, Well, here's
[7:35] Speaker 1: the clue. He will destroy death forever. What's the veil
[7:39] Speaker 1: that veils everybody? In fact, in fact, that produces the
[7:44] Speaker 1: self absorption, that leads to violence. The veil that veils
[7:49] Speaker 1: all peoples is the fear of death. How beautiful. Now,
[7:54] Speaker 1: in this heavenly place, the mystical elevated Mountain Zion, the
[7:59] Speaker 1: place of perfect praise, the fear of death will be removed.
[8:05] Speaker 1: And that is the condition for the possibility of the
[8:08] Speaker 1: deepest peace breaking out. In that heavenly place, we are immortalized.
[8:14] Speaker 1: We are raised up to a participation in God's manner
[8:19] Speaker 1: of being. Okay, we've looked at Mountain Zion, Jerusalem, the
[8:27] Speaker 1: Jerusalem that Isaiah knew, the place where, indeed, every year
[8:31] Speaker 1: it passed over, the tribes would go up, the place
[8:34] Speaker 1: indeed where they attempted to give God the best praise
[8:37] Speaker 1: they could. We look at that historical anticipation, and then
[8:43] Speaker 1: we look radically forward to the fulfillment of it in
[8:48] Speaker 1: the heavenly mountain Zion.
[8:51] Speaker 2: Can I suggest, though, there's.
[8:53] Speaker 1: A kind of middle mountain that looks back indeed to
[8:59] Speaker 1: ancient Israel and ancient Jerusalem, that also looks forward to
[9:05] Speaker 1: the fulfillment on the mystical mountain.
[9:09] Speaker 2: The mountain I'm talking about now is the Mass. It's
[9:15] Speaker 2: the Mass.
[9:16] Speaker 1: Take all of Isaiah's imagery here and apply it to
[9:21] Speaker 1: what we Catholics do, at least once a week by obligation,
[9:24] Speaker 1: every day, by invitation.
[9:28] Speaker 2: At every Mass, we go up a holy mountain.
[9:33] Speaker 1: We step out of the workaday world, and we consciously.
[9:37] Speaker 2: Raise our minds and our hearts upward to God.
[9:42] Speaker 1: And in the mass, God comes to meet us. God
[9:48] Speaker 1: comes to gather us, to speak his word and to
[9:53] Speaker 1: feed us.
[9:55] Speaker 2: Notice, please, at every Mass.
[9:59] Speaker 1: We gather from different places, different backgrounds, different points of view,
[10:09] Speaker 1: but all in peace. How beautiful that as the mass
[10:13] Speaker 1: commences we sing together. That's not just decoration, not just
[10:22] Speaker 1: traveling music for the priest to come up the aisle.
[10:26] Speaker 1: The singing of the gathered community, the harmonious raising of
[10:31] Speaker 1: their voices in common praise, is the sign that the
[10:35] Speaker 1: lion and lamb are lying down together. It's the sign
[10:39] Speaker 1: that at least for that moment, we've beaten the swords
[10:42] Speaker 1: into plowshares and the spears into pruning hooks in our
[10:46] Speaker 1: common praise of God, we found this beautiful community. Normally
[10:54] Speaker 1: antagonistic people and groups lie down as it were, together
[11:01] Speaker 1: as they pray. And then how wonderful. Isaiah tells us
[11:06] Speaker 1: that on the mystical Zion will be fed with the
[11:10] Speaker 1: best food. What happens at every mass, but Jesus himself
[11:19] Speaker 1: gives us the gift of his body and his blood,
[11:26] Speaker 1: or the purest wine, the juiciest meat. Well, those are
[11:29] Speaker 1: just evocations, those our symbols of the food that we
[11:34] Speaker 1: eat at every Mass, which is the body, blood, soul
[11:38] Speaker 1: and divinity of Jesus.
[11:43] Speaker 2: We're never better fed than we are at Mass.
[11:47] Speaker 4: Which again why it's tragic everybody, that's seventy percent of
[11:50] Speaker 4: Catholics stay away from what Vatican two rightly called the
[11:55] Speaker 4: source in someone of the Christian life.
[11:57] Speaker 1: Do you want to find peace in your heart? Do
[12:00] Speaker 1: you want to find peace among your fellow human beings?
[12:02] Speaker 1: Do you want to be fed with the finest food
[12:04] Speaker 1: that's where you go. That's where you find it. Anchi
[12:08] Speaker 1: and Israel all went up to Mount Zion for the
[12:10] Speaker 1: right praise of God. We look forward to the mystical
[12:13] Speaker 1: consummation of this on the Holy Mountain, but in the middle,
[12:17] Speaker 1: in our time, you find it in the Mass, the
[12:22] Speaker 1: Sacred Mountain. As we eat and drink the body and
[12:27] Speaker 1: blood of Christ. What happens to us by the way
[12:31] Speaker 1: we are immortalized.
[12:34] Speaker 2: The Church fathers saw that.
[12:35] Speaker 1: Really clearly, the Eucharist is food for the journey, that's true,
[12:42] Speaker 1: but it's also a kind of preparation. Listen now of
[12:47] Speaker 1: our minds, our hearts, and yes, our bodies to live
[12:52] Speaker 1: the immortalized life of Heaven. The Eucharist readies us. It
[12:59] Speaker 1: prepares us to.
[13:00] Speaker 2: Live in that space.
[13:05] Speaker 1: In other words, everything Isaiah saw in his mystical prophetic
[13:10] Speaker 1: vision that will one day be fully realized in Heaven
[13:15] Speaker 1: is present even now at the Mass.
[13:18] Speaker 2: And so maybe as I close with Isaiah, we.
[13:22] Speaker 1: Can say it every mass, behold our God to whom
[13:28] Speaker 1: we look to save us.
[13:30] Speaker 2: This is the Lord for whom we looked.
[13:33] Speaker 3: Let us rejoice and be glad that He has saved us.
[13:37] Speaker 1: For the hand of the Lord will rest upon this mountain,
[13:44] Speaker 1: and God bless you.

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