# Bishop Barron's Sermon - The Hidden Purpose Behind Your Greatest Suffering

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 5 Oct 2026, 15 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/74742479/bishop_barron_s_sermon_the_hidden_purpose_behind_your_greatest_suffering.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you. Friends, we continue this weekend the
[0:03] Speaker 1: reading from the 13th chapter of Matthew's Gospel, this marvelous
[0:07] Speaker 1: chapter dedicated to the parables of Jesus. And I know
[0:10] Speaker 1: we might be tempted to look at the parables and say, well,
[0:12] Speaker 1: aren't they nice, charming stories with a little moral? That's
[0:16] Speaker 1: to be very condescending toward them because they do very
[0:20] Speaker 1: serious and important work, these parables. Often the deepest theology
[0:24] Speaker 1: and spirituality is being conveyed by them. The one today
[0:28] Speaker 1: I want to focus on that I think is really,
[0:31] Speaker 1: really theologically rich and has been thought-provoking for me for
[0:34] Speaker 1: many years, this one about the traditionally called the wheat
[0:38] Speaker 1: and the tares. We'd say the wheat and the weeds, right?
[0:42] Speaker 1: The story you know well, a man sows good seed
[0:45] Speaker 1: in his field, but while he's asleep, an enemy sows
[0:49] Speaker 1: weeds among the wheat. And so when the crop grows up,
[0:54] Speaker 1: Both appear together, and the assistants to the man say, look, look,
[0:57] Speaker 1: let's go out there and we'll pull up the weeds.
[1:00] Speaker 1: And he goes, no, no, no. If you do that,
[1:02] Speaker 1: you'll compromise the weed. Let both of them grow, and
[1:05] Speaker 1: then at the harvest, we'll sort them out. And you say, okay, well,
[1:08] Speaker 1: that's an interesting little comparison. What does it mean? Well,
[1:13] Speaker 1: it's actually getting on to something very deep, it seems
[1:16] Speaker 1: to me. Who's the one who sows? Well, that's the
[1:19] Speaker 1: good God, the creator, who does nothing but good. Who's
[1:23] Speaker 1: the one that sows the weeds? Well, Jesus himself says, well,
[1:27] Speaker 1: that's the enemy. That's the devil. Now we see something
[1:30] Speaker 1: of great importance here. We look out at our world.
[1:34] Speaker 1: What do we see? Lots of good, of course. You know,
[1:38] Speaker 1: whatever God made is good. The whole ensemble is very good. But,
[1:43] Speaker 1: you know, if our eyes are open at all, we
[1:45] Speaker 1: see along with the good, lots of evil, lots of Wickedness,
[1:50] Speaker 1: lots of compromise, lots of disease and struggle and difficulty.
[1:55] Speaker 1: We see wheat, but a lot of weeds wrapped around them. Well,
[2:00] Speaker 1: here's the first important theological point, I think. And I've
[2:03] Speaker 1: got C.S. Lewis in mind here. Lewis said, it's a
[2:07] Speaker 1: bit of a puzzle. If you think, okay, God made
[2:10] Speaker 1: all things. God is perfectly good. God is morally perfect.
[2:15] Speaker 1: God makes the world not out of need, not of
[2:17] Speaker 1: any desire to manipulate, but out of sheer generous love. Okay,
[2:23] Speaker 1: if that's true, why should there be any evil at all?
[2:27] Speaker 1: The all-good God, out of radical love, makes the world
[2:31] Speaker 1: in its entirety. Why isn't the world simply wheat? Why
[2:34] Speaker 1: are there these weeds? And so this answer now becomes
[2:39] Speaker 1: a very provocative one. It's not the sower's of the wheat.
[2:44] Speaker 1: He's not the one responsible. There's an enemy. Now, what
[2:50] Speaker 1: does Lewis conclude from this? That old story might strike
[2:54] Speaker 1: as this fantastic, mythological, the old story of the war
[3:00] Speaker 1: of the angels. Are there spiritual creatures of God who
[3:04] Speaker 1: are good? Yeah, just as there are human beings who
[3:07] Speaker 1: are good. We call them saints. Are there also spiritual
[3:11] Speaker 1: creatures of God who are wicked, who have fallen, listen,
[3:15] Speaker 1: the same way that we spiritual creatures fall, precisely through
[3:18] Speaker 1: an abuse of freedom. Yeah, says our great tradition. The
[3:22] Speaker 1: fallen angels. Here's Lewis's insight. You can't say the wickedness
[3:28] Speaker 1: in the world, disease and death itself and everything else,
[3:31] Speaker 1: comes from the all-good God. You can't say that. So
[3:34] Speaker 1: where does it come from? Well, you can't just say, well,
[3:36] Speaker 1: it's matter. Matter is bad. No, we don't think matter
[3:38] Speaker 1: is bad. Whatever God makes is good. So where does
[3:42] Speaker 1: it come from? It comes, Lewis says, from the abuse
[3:47] Speaker 1: of freedom. Yeah, we can see it in the case
[3:49] Speaker 1: of the abuse of our own freedom has produced mayhem
[3:52] Speaker 1: in many ways, sure. But use that now as an analogy.
[3:59] Speaker 1: Use that, extrapolate from that to the abuse of a
[4:03] Speaker 1: spiritual freedom that's had repercussions throughout all of creation. Is
[4:11] Speaker 1: some of the evil that we see in the world
[4:13] Speaker 1: the result, indeed, of a kind of spiritual battle that
[4:18] Speaker 1: we're only vaguely aware of? Now, see, what does this do?
[4:23] Speaker 1: It enables us to see something of enormous importance, that
[4:27] Speaker 1: God is the Lord of the world. The devil is
[4:31] Speaker 1: a creature. Say what you want about the devil and
[4:34] Speaker 1: all of his wickedness and power. The devil remains a creature, therefore,
[4:38] Speaker 1: under the aegis of God. An enemy has given rise
[4:43] Speaker 1: to the negativity and evil in the world. Yeah, but
[4:48] Speaker 1: that means a spiritual creature finally under the control of God,
[4:53] Speaker 1: doing things only with the permission of God. Now, what
[4:59] Speaker 1: this holds off everybody is this very ancient heretical view.
[5:04] Speaker 1: I would associate it with ancient Zoroastrianism. I'd associate it
[5:08] Speaker 1: with ancient Gnosticism. I'd associate it with the Manichaeism that
[5:13] Speaker 1: once beguiled the mind of the young St. Augustine. I
[5:16] Speaker 1: would associate it with the Star Wars mentality, that what
[5:19] Speaker 1: you see in the world is this constant battle of
[5:24] Speaker 1: co-equal powers, good and evil, light and darkness, dark side
[5:29] Speaker 1: of the force, light side of the force. And that's
[5:32] Speaker 1: just the way the world is. This conflict between good
[5:35] Speaker 1: and evil is just baked into reality. And we don't
[5:39] Speaker 1: know who's going to carry the day. That's not biblical, everybody.
[5:44] Speaker 1: That's Zoroastrian and Gnostic and Manichean and Star Wars. Yeah.
[5:50] Speaker 1: But it's not the Bible. The Bible does not hold
[5:54] Speaker 1: the world as just this place of never-ending and unresolvable
[5:59] Speaker 1: conflict between who equal forces. No, no, no. God is
[6:04] Speaker 1: God and remains the Lord of the universe. And whatever
[6:07] Speaker 1: mayhem we see is the work ultimately of the abused
[6:12] Speaker 1: freedom of certain creatures, spiritual creatures and ourselves. The good
[6:20] Speaker 1: news is this remains a divine comedy, that we have
[6:25] Speaker 1: a confidence in what God is about. See, and therefore...
[6:30] Speaker 1: Let's keep following the logic of this parable. We can
[6:33] Speaker 1: see something of great importance. When the Master says, no, no,
[6:36] Speaker 1: don't tear up the weeds, because in doing so, you
[6:38] Speaker 1: could tear up the weed along with them. To some degree,
[6:44] Speaker 1: acknowledging the work of this fallen spiritual power, we can say,
[6:49] Speaker 1: perhaps God, who remains the Lord of all things, is
[6:55] Speaker 1: using even this dysfunction, even the weeds— in some way
[7:01] Speaker 1: to cultivate the wheat. And if you tear up the weeds,
[7:07] Speaker 1: the wheat will be compromised in some way. Can we
[7:11] Speaker 1: say with St. Paul that all things work together for
[7:14] Speaker 1: the good for those who love the Lord? That we
[7:16] Speaker 1: can see that even in the wickedness of the world,
[7:19] Speaker 1: God is affecting his purpose. Now, let's think of some
[7:26] Speaker 1: examples here. St. Paul himself the Lord gave me a
[7:32] Speaker 1: thorn in the flesh. And we don't know what that was.
[7:35] Speaker 1: He never tells us. Was it a physical suffering of
[7:39] Speaker 1: some kind? Maybe. You talk about Paul, maybe a speech impediment,
[7:44] Speaker 1: maybe trouble with his vision, some other physical ailment. We
[7:49] Speaker 1: don't know. Was it a psychological ailment? Was it Anxiety?
[7:55] Speaker 1: Was it depression? Was it some darkness in his life?
[7:58] Speaker 1: We don't know. But it was bad enough for Paul
[8:01] Speaker 1: to call it a thorn in the flesh. Imagine a
[8:03] Speaker 1: thorn or nail going into your flesh. It was something
[8:07] Speaker 1: pretty annoying, pretty obnoxious. And then he says, three times
[8:13] Speaker 1: I begged the Lord to take it from me. That
[8:16] Speaker 1: means again and again and again I asked the Lord.
[8:22] Speaker 1: Mind you, everybody listen to me. Everybody can name what
[8:26] Speaker 1: that thorn in the flesh is in your life, right?
[8:28] Speaker 1: There's something, and it's physical, it's spiritual, it's psychological, I
[8:32] Speaker 1: don't know what it is, but you've begged the Lord
[8:35] Speaker 1: three times, take that away from me. In terms of
[8:38] Speaker 1: this parable, rip up the weeds, just get rid of them. No, no, no, no,
[8:45] Speaker 1: says the Lord of the harvest. Let the wheat and
[8:48] Speaker 1: the weeds grow together, because in God's providence, Is he
[8:54] Speaker 1: using even that thorn in your flesh to affect some good?
[9:01] Speaker 1: You know, maybe I've told this story before in this context,
[9:04] Speaker 1: but it always strikes me. I've read a lot of
[9:06] Speaker 1: biographies of Franklin Roosevelt, arguably the greatest American president, maybe
[9:11] Speaker 1: second greatest after Lincoln. Roosevelt as a young man, I mean,
[9:16] Speaker 1: he's had it all. He was good looking. He was well-educated.
[9:19] Speaker 1: He was rich. He was charming by all accounts. He
[9:24] Speaker 1: had a magical name too, by the way. So his
[9:27] Speaker 1: distant cousin Theodore had been the president, famous, popular president.
[9:31] Speaker 1: So this young guy embarking on a political career, Harvard education,
[9:35] Speaker 1: good looks, money, and a magical name. Everyone looking at
[9:40] Speaker 1: him said, this guy, he's going to be president. This
[9:43] Speaker 1: guy has got a great career. And that looked very promising.
[9:48] Speaker 1: And then when this young, magical person is in his
[9:54] Speaker 1: high 30s. He's stricken with polio. And it devastated him.
[10:00] Speaker 1: He couldn't walk. And he thought, my career's over. My
[10:05] Speaker 1: life's over, effectively. His mother famously said, oh, no, retire.
[10:11] Speaker 1: Forget about it. You're not going to be governor or
[10:13] Speaker 1: president or anything. Retire and be a gentleman collecting stamps
[10:18] Speaker 1: or something. Well, FDR didn't retire, but rather he enters
[10:24] Speaker 1: back into politics. And here's now what every biographer points out.
[10:28] Speaker 1: That golden child, that child of promise, that magical young person,
[10:35] Speaker 1: also was kind of superficial, kind of self-absorbed. Yeah, he
[10:41] Speaker 1: wanted to be president, but not to make anyone's life better,
[10:44] Speaker 1: but kind of to enhance his own glory. But after
[10:48] Speaker 1: the polio... he developed this very deep compassion for people
[10:54] Speaker 1: who suffer. I mean, he wasn't that acquainted with the
[10:56] Speaker 1: ordinary suffering people of the world. He was a high aristocrat.
[11:00] Speaker 1: But after the polio, he entered deeply into the pain
[11:05] Speaker 1: and suffering of ordinary people. And it made him the
[11:09] Speaker 1: great statesman he became. What if, now here's the point,
[11:13] Speaker 1: what if early on, the minute he got that polio,
[11:16] Speaker 1: someone had to rip that out of his life, get
[11:19] Speaker 1: rid of that. No, the weeds, he would have come
[11:23] Speaker 1: up with the weeds. Pulling the weeds would have done
[11:27] Speaker 1: great damage to what God was actually trying to accomplish.
[11:31] Speaker 1: Here's a second one. You know these stories that emerged
[11:34] Speaker 1: only in the last maybe 20 years when her diaries
[11:36] Speaker 1: and letters became popular. more available, that the great Mother Teresa,
[11:41] Speaker 1: the greatest saint of the 20th century, arguably, you know,
[11:43] Speaker 1: the saint of Calcutta, but struggled for about 50 years
[11:50] Speaker 1: with what can only be called a profound depression, darkness,
[11:55] Speaker 1: a sense of the absence of God, of the meaninglessness
[11:57] Speaker 1: of things. Mother Teresa, if you had told me that
[12:00] Speaker 1: when I was a young man, I'd never believed it.
[12:01] Speaker 1: What do you mean, Mother Teresa? She's full of the
[12:04] Speaker 1: Holy Spirit. Well, she was indeed full of the Holy Spirit.
[12:07] Speaker 1: But she also had this thorn in the flesh. There
[12:11] Speaker 1: was also weeds wrapped around the wheat. And do you
[12:15] Speaker 1: ever wonder, did her compassion too, did her commitment to
[12:20] Speaker 1: the poor come precisely from her own wrestling with darkness? See,
[12:27] Speaker 1: God is the Lord of creation. We're not in a
[12:30] Speaker 1: Star Wars universe. God's the Lord. An enemy has done this, yes.
[12:34] Speaker 1: But see, God, as Aquinas says, permits evil to bring
[12:37] Speaker 1: about a greater good. That's the point of the parable.
[12:40] Speaker 1: God permits evil to bring about a greater good. Therefore,
[12:44] Speaker 1: don't automatically rip all the weeds out of your life.
[12:49] Speaker 1: Watch the damage you can do. I'll close with this.
[12:51] Speaker 1: Everybody knows part of Reinhold Niebuhr's famous serenity prayer, right? Lord,
[12:57] Speaker 1: grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change.
[13:01] Speaker 1: courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom
[13:04] Speaker 1: to know the difference. Beautiful. Everyone knows that part. But
[13:07] Speaker 1: here's how the rest of it goes. See, grant me
[13:11] Speaker 1: the serenity to accept maybe the thorn in the flesh
[13:13] Speaker 1: that I can't change. Now listen, living one day at
[13:17] Speaker 1: a time, enjoying one moment at a time, listen, accepting
[13:23] Speaker 1: hardship as a pathway to peace, taking, as Jesus did,
[13:29] Speaker 1: this sinful world as it is, not as I would
[13:34] Speaker 1: have it. See, get rid of all these weeds. Get
[13:37] Speaker 1: rid of them. Tear them up. No, no. Trusting that
[13:41] Speaker 1: you will make all things right if I surrender to
[13:45] Speaker 1: your will so that I may be reasonably happy in
[13:49] Speaker 1: this life. There's such liberation, I think, in that line, everybody.
[13:53] Speaker 1: Am I meant to be perfectly happy in this life? No, no.
[13:59] Speaker 1: reasonably happy. This life, wheat and tares. It's wheat and weeds.
[14:05] Speaker 1: Don't just rip the weeds out. No, no, this world
[14:08] Speaker 1: is kind of a mix. And supremely happy with you
[14:12] Speaker 1: forever in the next. Yes, finish this parable. Will the
[14:17] Speaker 1: time come when God in his justice and mercy will
[14:22] Speaker 1: separate wheat and tares? Yes, yes, in God's time and
[14:27] Speaker 1: God's way. In the meantime, let these two grow together.
[14:32] Speaker 1: You never know what the thorn in the flesh is
[14:36] Speaker 1: doing for you. You never know how the weeds are
[14:40] Speaker 1: perhaps benefiting the wheat. And God bless you.

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