# Bishop Barron's Sermon - Jesus Reveals the Most Precious Thing Youre Losing Every Day

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 30 Aug 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/74742494/bishop_barron_s_sermon_jesus_reveals_the_most_precious_thing_youre_losing_every_day.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you. Friends, we come to the 17th
[0:02] Speaker 1: Sunday of Ordinary Time, and we're going to finish our
[0:05] Speaker 1: reading of the 13th chapter of Matthew's Gospel, that great
[0:09] Speaker 1: chapter dealing with the parables. And gosh, the ones we
[0:13] Speaker 1: hear today are so fine. As I mentioned last week,
[0:16] Speaker 1: there's a tendency to write the parables off as nice
[0:19] Speaker 1: little stories with a moral, and they're kind of charming. No, no,
[0:23] Speaker 1: the parables are cutting to the heart of the matter
[0:26] Speaker 1: in many ways. It's Jesus' kind of preferred way of
[0:29] Speaker 1: conveying the truths of the kingdom. And these are really
[0:32] Speaker 1: good examples. The ones today are all about the summum bonum,
[0:38] Speaker 1: the highest good. And therefore, they're about what's most fundamental
[0:43] Speaker 1: in the spiritual life. You could argue the entire Bible
[0:48] Speaker 1: is about this theme. I've said the master theme of
[0:50] Speaker 1: the Bible is right worship. And see, that's the same thing.
[0:54] Speaker 1: You worship, worthship. what you think is of highest good,
[0:58] Speaker 1: highest value, the summum bonum. So what is that, and
[1:02] Speaker 1: how do you get your lives ordered to it, makes
[1:05] Speaker 1: all the difference, right? That's what these are about. So
[1:08] Speaker 1: the first one, Jesus said, The kingdom of heaven is
[1:12] Speaker 1: like a treasure buried in a field, which a person
[1:15] Speaker 1: finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and
[1:19] Speaker 1: sells all that he has and buys that field. It's
[1:24] Speaker 1: a cool image. We're not going to get it right away,
[1:26] Speaker 1: but in the ancient world before, you know, insurance companies
[1:29] Speaker 1: and all that, when people left for whatever reason, maybe
[1:33] Speaker 1: there was an enemy army coming or whatever, they would
[1:36] Speaker 1: bury sometimes their valuables in the field, hoping that, you know,
[1:40] Speaker 1: eventually they'd come back and they'd be able to recover them. Well, then,
[1:44] Speaker 1: you know, who knows? They were killed or they were distracted.
[1:48] Speaker 1: They never came back. And that treasure remained buried in
[1:51] Speaker 1: the field. Until maybe many, many years later, his farmer
[1:55] Speaker 1: comes along plowing and comes across the treasure. That's the
[1:58] Speaker 1: image here. So something you come upon that suddenly you
[2:02] Speaker 1: realize this is of enormous value. In fact, such great value,
[2:06] Speaker 1: I'm going to sell everything I've got to buy that field.
[2:10] Speaker 1: Or the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching
[2:13] Speaker 1: for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price,
[2:18] Speaker 1: he goes and sells all that he has and buys it. See, everybody,
[2:22] Speaker 1: this is life. This is what it's about. Do you
[2:28] Speaker 1: muster the capacity in your life to say, now that
[2:32] Speaker 1: I found the summum bonum, the highest good, the pearl,
[2:37] Speaker 1: the treasure, I'm willing to sacrifice or relativize or set
[2:44] Speaker 1: aside everything else, see? If I don't do that— now, we'll
[2:49] Speaker 1: come at the end of this story, we'll come to
[2:51] Speaker 1: what happens. This is the whole drama of the spiritual life.
[2:56] Speaker 1: Can you muster the capacity to order your life properly
[3:00] Speaker 1: to the summum bonum? Okay, you say, I get that,
[3:04] Speaker 1: I get that, but what is it? How do I
[3:07] Speaker 1: find it? What is the treasure? What is the pearl
[3:10] Speaker 1: of great price? Well, let me rely here on both
[3:14] Speaker 1: Pascal— the great French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher, and Kierkegaard,
[3:20] Speaker 1: the great 19th century mysterious philosophical thinker. They both say
[3:25] Speaker 1: something similar, really, about three stages of life or three
[3:30] Speaker 1: stages of value. Call them the goods of the body,
[3:36] Speaker 1: the goods of the mind, and then the goods of
[3:39] Speaker 1: the heart— What are the goods of the body? Well,
[3:44] Speaker 1: all those values associated with sensual pleasure. So food and
[3:49] Speaker 1: drink and sex and other forms of sensual delight. Are
[3:54] Speaker 1: those good things? Yes. I've said a million times, Catholics
[3:58] Speaker 1: aren't Puritans. We like the body. We like the goods
[4:00] Speaker 1: of the body. We're in favor of food and drink
[4:03] Speaker 1: and sex and sensual pleasure. They're all good things. Whatever
[4:06] Speaker 1: God makes is good. The ensemble, very good. So we
[4:10] Speaker 1: like all these things. They're goods. But listen, everybody, they're
[4:14] Speaker 1: not the summum bonum. They're not the highest good. Now,
[4:21] Speaker 1: I mean, Plato understood this. This is a very ancient perception.
[4:25] Speaker 1: Why aren't they the summum bonum? If you're a hedonist, right,
[4:30] Speaker 1: you think they are the summum bonum. That's what life's
[4:32] Speaker 1: all about. Eat, drink, and be merry. That's what life's
[4:34] Speaker 1: all about, getting as much pleasure as you can. But
[4:39] Speaker 1: what if sages across the ages— realized, well, how ephemeral,
[4:45] Speaker 1: how fleeting these goods are. I'm going to give an example.
[4:49] Speaker 1: When I was in Santa Barbara, I was there for
[4:51] Speaker 1: six years, loved it, lived in a beautiful, that beautiful city.
[4:55] Speaker 1: And one thing I loved to do is there were
[4:57] Speaker 1: mountains right near my house, and I could just walk
[4:59] Speaker 1: a little bit and enter a mountain trail. And there's
[5:02] Speaker 1: this good, challenging walk kind of up the mountain. I
[5:05] Speaker 1: get to the top after this good exercise, I could
[5:07] Speaker 1: see Santa Barbara, I could see the Pacific Ocean. I'd
[5:11] Speaker 1: walk down this beautiful hill and I'd get back home.
[5:14] Speaker 1: I'd get a tall glass of ice water and I
[5:16] Speaker 1: would sit down in my comfortable chair on the back porch.
[5:19] Speaker 1: And my back porch looked up at the mountains. And
[5:22] Speaker 1: I'd sit down and after that good exercise and the
[5:25] Speaker 1: endorphins had been released, right? And I'm sipping the water.
[5:29] Speaker 1: And at that moment, looking up at the mountains, surrounded
[5:32] Speaker 1: by beautiful things, I think, this is bliss, you know?
[5:35] Speaker 1: This is just it. I love it. I love it. Then...
[5:41] Speaker 1: A few minutes later, the water's gone. And okay, that
[5:46] Speaker 1: was great. And I'm, you know, waiting for my next thing.
[5:49] Speaker 1: What else am I going to do? Like all sensual pleasure,
[5:54] Speaker 1: it came and it went. Great. And then it passes.
[6:00] Speaker 1: Think of every meal you've ever eaten. The best meal
[6:03] Speaker 1: you've ever eaten. The best one. Surrounded by friends, nice
[6:07] Speaker 1: cigar afterwards. And then the meal's over and okay. feel
[6:12] Speaker 1: kind of stuffed. My clothes smell like cigars. Maybe I'm
[6:17] Speaker 1: going to leave a little bit sick for that dinner.
[6:19] Speaker 1: You know, sensual pleasure, it happens, and then it's over.
[6:24] Speaker 1: I've told you before about my addiction to popcorn. Just today,
[6:28] Speaker 1: before I came over here, I had lunch. I had
[6:30] Speaker 1: a very simple lunch, soup and a little bit of
[6:32] Speaker 1: chicken and cheese, and I was still a little bit hungry.
[6:35] Speaker 1: And so I got this bowl of popcorn, and you know,
[6:38] Speaker 1: when I'm eating popcorn, the first couple of It's like,
[6:41] Speaker 1: I'm in heaven. I love it. I just love it.
[6:44] Speaker 1: But then, of course, I ate the whole bowl of popcorn.
[6:47] Speaker 1: And afterwards, you get the kernels stuck in your teeth
[6:49] Speaker 1: and your mouth's kind of greasy and you got popcorn
[6:53] Speaker 1: on you. That's bodily pleasures are like that. They come
[6:58] Speaker 1: and they go. Wise people realize they're not the summum bonum.
[7:02] Speaker 1: They're not the treasure. They're not the pearl of great price.
[7:07] Speaker 1: They're good, but they're not summum bonum. Okay. from the
[7:11] Speaker 1: goods of the body to the goods of the mind. Now,
[7:14] Speaker 1: this is interesting. As you mature and you get a
[7:17] Speaker 1: broader experience of things, you realize there are certain goods
[7:21] Speaker 1: that are accessed through the mind that are more substantial,
[7:25] Speaker 1: less evanescent than the mere goods of the body. Think
[7:29] Speaker 1: now of someone— mathematics and science and literature and philosophy,
[7:35] Speaker 1: these goods of the mind that give you access to
[7:37] Speaker 1: deep and abiding truths about the world, you know. You have,
[7:41] Speaker 1: and Plato saw this, you have stepped out of the
[7:43] Speaker 1: ordinary world of sense experience, the goods of the body,
[7:46] Speaker 1: to a higher plane. The great story here is Alexander
[7:51] Speaker 1: the Great and Diogenes, the philosopher. So the story, if
[7:54] Speaker 1: it's not true, it should be, right? That Diogenes is
[7:58] Speaker 1: there on a sunny day, and he's drawing figures on
[8:00] Speaker 1: the ground. He's doing mathematical calculations. And Alexander the Great
[8:04] Speaker 1: had just conquered his town, and he'd heard about this
[8:07] Speaker 1: great sage. So Alexander comes and He stands next to Diogenes,
[8:10] Speaker 1: who's on the ground, and he says, you know, I
[8:13] Speaker 1: am Alexander. I've just conquered your city. What can I
[8:16] Speaker 1: do for you? And the philosopher responded, you can get
[8:20] Speaker 1: out of my light. He was blocking the light, you know,
[8:26] Speaker 1: for these things on the ground. What does that show you?
[8:29] Speaker 1: That he was saying, look, man, I know you can
[8:32] Speaker 1: give me any sensual pleasure I want. I mean, you're
[8:34] Speaker 1: the great Alexander, but I don't want those things. I'm
[8:37] Speaker 1: not interested in those things. I moved to a higher plane, right?
[8:42] Speaker 1: Or one of my favorite stories is of Thomas Aquinas,
[8:44] Speaker 1: my hero, is that he and his brother Dominicans were
[8:47] Speaker 1: coming back from a journey and they were approaching the
[8:49] Speaker 1: city of Paris, which was seen in the Middle Ages
[8:51] Speaker 1: as it is today, one of the great cities in Europe.
[8:54] Speaker 1: And they came to this ridge and they suddenly saw
[8:56] Speaker 1: the city in all its splendor. One of the brothers said, oh,
[8:59] Speaker 1: what wouldn't you give for that city? And Aquinas said,
[9:03] Speaker 1: I'd give the whole thing if I could just get
[9:05] Speaker 1: that Chrysostom commentary on Matthew. We're reading Matthew's Gospel here. Well,
[9:10] Speaker 1: what that tells you is Thomas Aquinas, I mean, he
[9:13] Speaker 1: wasn't beguiled by the sensual pleasures that could come from,
[9:16] Speaker 1: you know, ruling the city of Paris. He wanted Chrysostom's commentary.
[9:22] Speaker 1: He had moved from the mere goods of the body
[9:24] Speaker 1: to the goods of the mind. Okay. Have we found
[9:27] Speaker 1: the summum bonum? Not yet. Not yet. I mean, look,
[9:32] Speaker 1: even those goods of the mind, philosophy, science, mathematics, they
[9:36] Speaker 1: give us access to certain truths, but We know this.
[9:39] Speaker 1: You answer one question, you got 10 more. Answer those,
[9:42] Speaker 1: you got 100 more. Whatever truth you come to by
[9:46] Speaker 1: means of these sciences, well, it's not the totality of
[9:49] Speaker 1: truth that the mind is looking for. Lonergan said that, right?
[9:53] Speaker 1: The mind wants to know everything about everything. It's not
[9:56] Speaker 1: satisfied by particular truths. So the goods of the mind,
[10:01] Speaker 1: they're good, very good, but they're not the summum bonum.
[10:05] Speaker 1: What's the summum bonum? What Pascal would call the goods
[10:09] Speaker 1: of the heart, what Kierkegaard would call the properly religious
[10:14] Speaker 1: dimension of life. When the soul, the heart— is opened
[10:20] Speaker 1: up to God and to the things of God. What
[10:24] Speaker 1: have we found? In God alone, we found the highest good.
[10:30] Speaker 1: Not something as evanescent as the goods of the world,
[10:33] Speaker 1: like eating popcorn and relaxing after a great hike or
[10:38] Speaker 1: savoring a great meal or whatever it is. Greater even
[10:42] Speaker 1: than whatever philosophy and science and math can give us.
[10:47] Speaker 1: God being itself, the source of existence, God, the infinite God.
[10:55] Speaker 1: Now we found the summum bonum, the highest good. Listen now.
[11:00] Speaker 1: In relation to whom, all the other goods find their place. See,
[11:06] Speaker 1: we don't have to play the game of, I found God,
[11:10] Speaker 1: therefore I'm rejecting everything else. No, no. Seek ye first
[11:17] Speaker 1: the kingdom of God. and his righteousness, and the rest
[11:22] Speaker 1: will be given unto you. Now, with your loves properly ordered,
[11:27] Speaker 1: you can see the relationship between bodily goods, intellectual goods,
[11:33] Speaker 1: and the summum bonum. But see, the point is, everybody,
[11:36] Speaker 1: once you've found the pearl of great price, don't mess
[11:40] Speaker 1: around with simulacra. Once you've found the treasure, sell everything else,
[11:46] Speaker 1: meaning don't treat anything else as the summum bonum. Lord,
[11:50] Speaker 1: the God of Israel is a jealous God. That's what
[11:53] Speaker 1: it means. Not that God's falling into a jealous snit.
[11:56] Speaker 1: He doesn't have emotions the way we do. It means
[11:58] Speaker 1: there's no competition here. You can't have two highest goods.
[12:03] Speaker 1: When you find the summum bonum, relativize everything else in
[12:08] Speaker 1: your life and order it there. You know, a very
[12:13] Speaker 1: good example of this to me is the great Thomas More,
[12:18] Speaker 1: Lord Chancellor of England, a man who loved the good
[12:21] Speaker 1: things of the body. He had this manor house, and
[12:24] Speaker 1: he ate fine meals, and he was acquainted with the
[12:28] Speaker 1: most exalted spirits in Europe, and he knew the goods
[12:31] Speaker 1: of the body and of the mind. Of course he did.
[12:35] Speaker 1: But when he was brought to the scaffold because he
[12:37] Speaker 1: had opposed Henry VIII, what did he say? I die
[12:41] Speaker 1: the king's good servant. Yeah, he was. All his life,
[12:44] Speaker 1: he was the king's good servant. He served the political
[12:47] Speaker 1: ends of England. Yeah, he believed in that. He was
[12:50] Speaker 1: the king's good servant. But God's first, right? That's how
[12:55] Speaker 1: it works. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and
[12:58] Speaker 1: his righteousness, and the rest will be given unto you.
[13:02] Speaker 1: What's the central tragedy of life? And I make bold
[13:05] Speaker 1: to say this without fear of contradiction. The central tragedy
[13:09] Speaker 1: of human life, as Augustine put it, is mistaking a
[13:12] Speaker 1: creature for the creator. When I take anything creaturely, a
[13:16] Speaker 1: good of the body or the mind, anything creaturely, and
[13:19] Speaker 1: I make that my summum bonum, all the trouble in
[13:25] Speaker 1: life that we experience spiritually and psychologically, everybody, follows from
[13:30] Speaker 1: that fatal move. Seek ye first the kingdom of God.
[13:37] Speaker 1: When you find the treasure, relativize everything else. When you
[13:41] Speaker 1: find the pearl, buy it. Relativize everything else. To get
[13:47] Speaker 1: that right is to live as a citizen of the
[13:51] Speaker 1: kingdom of God. And God bless you.

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