# The Dwelling Place of God - Bishop Barron Sermon

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 17 Sep 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75098732/the_dwelling_place_of_god_bishop_barron_s_sunday_sermon.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you, friends. On this fifth Sunday of Easter,
[0:03] Speaker 1: we have these marvelous readings that are linked in a
[0:06] Speaker 1: really interesting way, but I think you've got to be
[0:08] Speaker 1: attentive to a somewhat hidden theme that runs like a
[0:12] Speaker 1: golden thread through them. And the theme is the temple.
[0:16] Speaker 1: The temple in Jerusalem was the focal point of Jewish life.
[0:21] Speaker 1: It was everything, political, cultural, and of course, religious center
[0:25] Speaker 1: of the country. It was seen in almost literal sense
[0:28] Speaker 1: of the dwelling place of God on earth. The temple
[0:32] Speaker 1: dominated their consciousness. And to understand the New Testament text,
[0:36] Speaker 1: we have to see the importance of the temple. Well,
[0:39] Speaker 1: look at the first thing now. Reading 1 is from
[0:42] Speaker 1: the Acts of the Apostles. The first part of it's
[0:44] Speaker 1: all about the choosing of deacons. As I record these words,
[0:47] Speaker 1: I'll be ordaining deacons here shortly, and we'll, I'm sure,
[0:50] Speaker 1: read this reading. But I want to draw attention to
[0:53] Speaker 1: what happens now at the very end. It says, the
[0:57] Speaker 1: word of God continued to spread, and the number of
[1:00] Speaker 1: the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly. Now listen, even a
[1:04] Speaker 1: large group of priests were becoming obedient to the faith.
[1:09] Speaker 1: That was of monumental significance. Who were the priests? Well,
[1:13] Speaker 1: they were the chief officers of the temple. They were
[1:15] Speaker 1: the ones who presided over the animal sacrifices, the prayers,
[1:20] Speaker 1: the instruction at the temple. They were the officers of
[1:25] Speaker 1: this great place. If they were accepting the faith, what
[1:29] Speaker 1: does that mean? It means that in some way they
[1:32] Speaker 1: sensed Jesus represented the fulfillment of the temple. Not the
[1:39] Speaker 1: repudiation of it. That's the wrong way to think about it.
[1:41] Speaker 1: Not like an either-or. But Jesus is the fulfillment of
[1:46] Speaker 1: all that happened in the temple. And indeed, it's all
[1:49] Speaker 1: through the Gospels, this language of sacrifice and atonement and
[1:54] Speaker 1: blood offering and the veil being torn in two and
[1:57] Speaker 1: all of that. Well, the priests, see, these priests, these early,
[2:01] Speaker 1: early figures understood that, the link between what they were
[2:06] Speaker 1: doing in the temple and what Jesus accomplished. Okay, so
[2:10] Speaker 1: keep that in mind from reading one. Now, listen to
[2:13] Speaker 1: reading two, which is from first letter of Peter. Peter,
[2:18] Speaker 1: who would have been, you know, intimately aware of the
[2:21] Speaker 1: temple and its workings. He says, Beloved, come to him, Christ,
[2:28] Speaker 1: a living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and
[2:33] Speaker 1: precious in the sight of God. Well, I submit to you,
[2:37] Speaker 1: the stone being referred to here is the cornerstone of
[2:41] Speaker 1: the temple, rejected by men but made by God the
[2:46] Speaker 1: cornerstone of the true temple. this place of right praise. Now,
[2:53] Speaker 1: you say, well, wait a minute. Why would you automatically
[2:55] Speaker 1: think he's talking about the temple? Well, listen to what
[2:58] Speaker 1: comes right after. So, come to Jesus, the stone chosen
[3:03] Speaker 1: by God, and then listen. Let yourselves be built like
[3:09] Speaker 1: living stones into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood,
[3:16] Speaker 1: to offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Now,
[3:22] Speaker 1: that couldn't be any clearer. So Christ is the cornerstone. Okay,
[3:26] Speaker 1: got that. And now you, his followers, you, members of
[3:33] Speaker 1: his body, to choose a different metaphor, but you are
[3:35] Speaker 1: to be built into an edifice of living stones based
[3:40] Speaker 1: upon the cornerstone of Christ. It's a slightly different metaphor
[3:44] Speaker 1: from head and members, but it's Cornerstone and living stones
[3:50] Speaker 1: making up a new and true temple. Ah, now the
[3:55] Speaker 1: attentive reader will remember in the Gospel of John when
[3:58] Speaker 1: Jesus says, I'm going to tear down this old temple
[4:02] Speaker 1: and in three days rebuild it, referring to the temple
[4:06] Speaker 1: of his body. Now we understand what the church is.
[4:11] Speaker 1: We understand what those priests, those early temple priests understood.
[4:18] Speaker 1: that in Jesus and his Church, the work of the
[4:21] Speaker 1: temple is brought to fulfillment. Now, what does this mean?
[4:26] Speaker 1: The temple was the place where God and humanity came together,
[4:31] Speaker 1: where the human sacrifice was offered to God, and the
[4:36] Speaker 1: divine grace accepted that sacrifice, and a reconciliation between God
[4:43] Speaker 1: and humanity was affected. That's what the temple meant. It
[4:46] Speaker 1: was a kind of trysting place between divinity and humanity,
[4:50] Speaker 1: where a ruptured relationship was healed. Okay. Now we understand
[4:58] Speaker 1: the purpose of a church. Oh, it's a club of
[5:01] Speaker 1: like-minded people. It's those who believe in Jesus. No, that's
[5:06] Speaker 1: just way too flat. The church is the mystical body
[5:10] Speaker 1: of Jesus. That's a really rich image. That means we're
[5:13] Speaker 1: his hands and fingers and eyes and feet. We're the
[5:16] Speaker 1: means by which Jesus continues his work in the world.
[5:19] Speaker 1: But now this metaphor, the church is the true temple,
[5:23] Speaker 1: which means the place of right praise that affects a
[5:29] Speaker 1: union between divinity and humanity. How do people come to God?
[5:36] Speaker 1: They come to God through the church. It's something rather
[5:42] Speaker 1: staggering and extraordinary to say, really. That's true. We, embodying
[5:50] Speaker 1: our relationship to Christ to the wider world, now serve
[5:54] Speaker 1: to bring people to the Lord. They see in our
[5:59] Speaker 1: right praise and the way our lives are ordered according
[6:03] Speaker 1: to right praise, they see their access to God. Just
[6:08] Speaker 1: think of, you know, for a second— the people in
[6:10] Speaker 1: your life who brought you to Christ. It's by their
[6:16] Speaker 1: own attractiveness, their own spiritual magnetism, that you were drawn
[6:21] Speaker 1: to Christ. That's how the Church works. It's the temple.
[6:26] Speaker 1: You become a trysting place between divinity and humanity. See,
[6:31] Speaker 1: that's it. Let yourself be built into a spiritual house
[6:36] Speaker 1: to be a holy priesthood. Okay. Okay. What's a priest?
[6:40] Speaker 1: A priest offers sacrifice. What does sacrifice do? It reconciles
[6:44] Speaker 1: divinity and humanity. Every baptized person, Catholic doctrine teaches, every
[6:49] Speaker 1: baptized person is priest, prophet, and king. By the way,
[6:53] Speaker 1: with that in mind, listen. This is how the reading
[6:57] Speaker 1: ends for today. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
[7:04] Speaker 1: a holy nation, a people of his own. so that
[7:07] Speaker 1: you may announce the praises of him who called you
[7:11] Speaker 1: out of darkness into his wonderful light. I don't know
[7:14] Speaker 1: any better description of a church anywhere in the Bible.
[7:18] Speaker 1: We talk about the baptized as priest, prophet, and king. Well, listen,
[7:23] Speaker 1: you're a royal priesthood, priest and king. King, you order
[7:29] Speaker 1: and govern. Priest, you perform a sacrifice that reconciles. Every
[7:33] Speaker 1: baptized person does those. And then how about prophet? Prophet
[7:37] Speaker 1: speaks God's word, that you might announce the praises of
[7:41] Speaker 1: him who's called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
[7:44] Speaker 1: What do we do as members of the church? We
[7:46] Speaker 1: tell the world, we prophesize, we speak the divine word
[7:51] Speaker 1: to draw people into a relationship with the Lord. There
[7:54] Speaker 1: it is. We're the temple. We're the temple. the place
[8:00] Speaker 1: of right praise. All right, so reading one, the priests.
[8:03] Speaker 1: Reading two, the church is being built up on the
[8:05] Speaker 1: cornerstone of Christ into an edifice of living stones. Now,
[8:10] Speaker 1: the gospel. Jesus, now the night before he dies, addressing
[8:15] Speaker 1: his disciples in this extraordinary speech that he gives. Jesus says,
[8:21] Speaker 1: Do not let your hearts be troubled, but have faith
[8:24] Speaker 1: in God and faith also in me. Why? In my
[8:30] Speaker 1: Father's house there are many dwelling places. If there were not,
[8:35] Speaker 1: what I have told you, I'm going to prepare a
[8:37] Speaker 1: place for you. Hmm. In my Father's house. What's the
[8:43] Speaker 1: Father's house? Any first-century Jew hearing that would say the temple.
[8:49] Speaker 1: The temple is the Father's house. That's where the God
[8:52] Speaker 1: of Israel dwells. And the temple, there was room in
[8:56] Speaker 1: the outer courts and all that to gather in the world.
[8:59] Speaker 1: In my father's house, there are many dwelling places. So
[9:04] Speaker 1: the temple in Jerusalem anticipates the temple of the church
[9:13] Speaker 1: in which there are many, many mansions. I always go
[9:17] Speaker 1: back to the image of the Bernini colonnade of St.
[9:20] Speaker 1: Peter's going out to welcome in the whole world. I've
[9:23] Speaker 1: I've been there so many times in that square, and
[9:26] Speaker 1: indeed you sense the whole world is coming. Yeah, there
[9:30] Speaker 1: are many dwelling places in the temple of the church
[9:35] Speaker 1: as it gathers in the nations. But now wait. Jerusalem temple,
[9:40] Speaker 1: the temple of the church, the edifice of living stones.
[9:44] Speaker 1: But both of those are finally symbolic of, finally they
[9:51] Speaker 1: are anticipations of The truest temple, which is what? Heaven.
[10:01] Speaker 1: What's my Father's house? Jerusalem, temple, okay, church, yeah. Ultimately,
[10:06] Speaker 1: the Father's house is heaven. That space, listen now, that
[10:16] Speaker 1: opens up between the Father and the Son. The Son
[10:23] Speaker 1: went all the way to the limits of God-forsakenness to
[10:27] Speaker 1: gather in even the worst of sinners, to gather in
[10:31] Speaker 1: to the space in between the Father and the Son,
[10:37] Speaker 1: which is called the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is
[10:42] Speaker 1: the love that connects the Father and the Son. In
[10:44] Speaker 1: my Father's house, there are many dwelling places. What we're
[10:48] Speaker 1: talking about here, everybody, it's a mystical significance here. The
[10:53] Speaker 1: earthly temple of Jerusalem, even the temple of the Church,
[10:56] Speaker 1: are but anticipations of it. The temple in heaven, when we,
[11:03] Speaker 1: in the fulfillment of our spiritual lives, are drawn into
[11:07] Speaker 1: the space between the Father and the Son. Is there
[11:13] Speaker 1: room for all of us? Yeah. In my Father's house
[11:17] Speaker 1: are many dwelling places. Is it a place of competition? No, no, no.
[11:24] Speaker 1: There's room for all of us. Well, wait a minute.
[11:27] Speaker 1: If I get a space, that means you don't get
[11:28] Speaker 1: a space. No, no, no. It doesn't work that way.
[11:33] Speaker 1: The Jerusalem temple and the church are symbolic anticipations of
[11:37] Speaker 1: the way that God the Father wants to gather through
[11:42] Speaker 1: the Son all of us into the embrace of the
[11:46] Speaker 1: Holy Spirit. Listen again to him. And if I go,
[11:49] Speaker 1: as he's talking about the night before he dies now,
[11:52] Speaker 1: if I go and prepare a place for you, I
[11:54] Speaker 1: will come back again and take you to myself so
[12:00] Speaker 1: that where I am, you also may be. That's everything.
[12:07] Speaker 1: That's the spiritual life. Now listen, Thomas wonderfully says to him, Master,
[12:12] Speaker 1: we don't know where you're going. How can we know
[12:14] Speaker 1: the way? Jesus says, I am the way. I'm the way.
[12:20] Speaker 1: How do you get into the Father's house? Follow him.
[12:25] Speaker 1: Walk according to his path. Think as he thinks. See
[12:30] Speaker 1: as he sees. Act as he acts. Remember, he's the shepherd.
[12:35] Speaker 1: Follow him. I'm the way. But mind you, I'm also
[12:40] Speaker 1: the truth and the life. That means I'm the way
[12:43] Speaker 1: in and I'm the goal of the process. Because the...
[12:48] Speaker 1: The mansion I'm inviting you into is the mansion of
[12:52] Speaker 1: God's own inner life. See, Christianity is not just about
[12:59] Speaker 1: being a nice person in this world. It's not just
[13:02] Speaker 1: about making the world a better place. I mean, fine, fine.
[13:06] Speaker 1: What it's finally about is this mystical insertion into the
[13:13] Speaker 1: definitive temple— the definitive place of right praise. The priests
[13:21] Speaker 1: of the Jerusalem temple, they sensed in Christ this was
[13:24] Speaker 1: coming to a fulfillment. The church represents on earth the
[13:28] Speaker 1: symbolic anticipation of it.
[13:31] Speaker 2: But finally, it's the heavenly temple, the Father's house, where
[13:38] Speaker 2: there's room for all of us in the great space
[13:41] Speaker 2: of the Holy Spirit.
[13:45] Speaker 1: That, everybody, is the consummation, really, of what we call
[13:49] Speaker 1: the resurrection of the Lord. That's the consummation of the
[13:51] Speaker 1: whole life of the church, to be gathered into that
[13:55] Speaker 1: sacred temple. And God bless you.

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