Bishop Barron’s West Point Address

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] hey listen everybody i'm delighted to be here it's my first visit to west point had a magnificent tour today saw all the highlights got a great sense of the history and i've always had an interest in american history and military history so it's a privilege to be here and to be in this magnificent place you know a couple of personal references uh today in the catholic calendar is the feast day of saint pope john paul ii and john paul ii meant a great deal to me he was elected pope the year that i entered the seminary and so my whole time in the seminary of my years of ordination my years in the parish it was so um influenced by him so shaped by him by his vision of things i consider myself very much a john paul ii priest and bishop so i want to pay special tribute to him but i also want to pay tribute to not just a father figure but my own father who died many years ago way too young but today this day october the 22nd 2021 would have been his 100th birthday so it's the 100th anniversary thank you [Applause] he was the finest and noblest person i've ever known and so to stand in this uh fine and noble place and pay tribute to him on his 100th anniversary is a great privilege for me hey um can i even say the words naval academy here no i didn't think so but i'll just say it this way just about a year ago i was at that unnamed place and i i spoke on three sailors in the old testament and i drew spiritual lessons from them i thought well it's natural here at west point than to talk about three soldiers from the old testament and draw some spiritual truth from them you know the bible has a lot to say about soldiers in many ways uh the bible's a book of battles the book of warfare all of israel's kings are warriors without exception and to some degree of course these are historical narratives that varies you know from book to book but we can read them as accounts of things that that truly happened on the other hand from the earliest days of the church i'm talking about end of the beginning of the second century our greatest scholars began to see that these texts dealing with warfare should perhaps best be read as accounts of the spiritual warfare we should read them with spiritual eyes so i'm going to propose three warriors to you now so you can learn military strategy from them i'll leave that to your professors here but to learn about the spiritual struggle and how best it's fought i'll look at three soldiers david naaman and joshua david naaman and joshua and i want to start with the last one first joshua you know from the earliest days of the church has been a very controversial figure but i would say especially in our time when we are hypersensitive to the abuse of power powerful nations kicking around less than powerful nations the demands and dignity of the other all these are great concerns of ours so people read the exploits of joshua and they're appalled remember he was moses successor who led israel into the promised land and he battled the natives of that place you know the hittites the jebusites and the amorites and the various peoples killing them in great numbers conquering their cities destroying and burning them and probably most scandalously especially to our ears today often commanded by god to put the ban on peoples that meant to kill every man woman child and animal in the place so you can see how people especially today read these texts and say what is going on how could god be presiding over this chaos this mayhem well as i say this is not a new problem from the earliest days christian interpreters have wrestled with this well let me give you a little hint now of how to read these texts of joshua's conquest remember now as he leads the israelite people across the river jordan from the east now into the promised land the first city he confronts is the city of jericho interestingly one of the oldest cities on the planet one of the oldest inhabited places on the earth how does joshua conquer jericho swords and spears and fire no no listen to this command from the lord he tells joshua to do [Music] you shall march around the city all the warriors circling the city once thus you shall do for six days with seven priests bearing seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark of the covenant okay they should do that for six days then on the seventh day they walk around the city again they blow the trumpets and they shout and then the walls of jericho fall not spears not swords not fire but what now especially catholics here what does it sound like priests processions tabernacle music and song it sounds a lot like a liturgy doesn't it and that is not accidental in fact i think it's the interpretive key to this book [Music] what does jericho stand for jericho stands for the city of sin which means a city predicated upon now listen predicated upon false worship worship comes from an older english word worth ship what's the highest worth to you once you know that you know everything you need to know what's of highest value to you will determine the way you live and organize your lives jericho is predicated upon a false or phony form of worship something other than god is being worshipped how does israel conquer jericho by a liturgical procession evocative of the right praise of god think of cities even to this day think of ways that we organize ourselves they follow from what we worship if we worship money we're going to organize our lives a certain way if we worship political power we're going to organize ourselves a certain way if we worship sensual pleasure we will organize our cities a certain way the bible's point is if you worship anything less than god the result will be great disfunction you know what's interesting speaking of cities when i was a student over in europe i used to love to go to you know the great cities and you'd go through the modern part but everyone wanted to go to the old section right the old part of town more beautiful there's a story there why are the modern sections of our cities not nearly as beautiful as the old ones that's interesting but at the very heart of the old city invariably was what a place like this invariably there was a place of worship the honoring of god was in the literal physical sense the organizing center of the city around that point a properly ordered city will emerge you go to cities today where are the churches now in this little city here there's still this feature in there you look up and you see this chapel up on the height we go to most of our modern cities what do you see look these great skyscrapers dedicated to in our country in business and finance and insurance you know in my hometown of chicago holy name cathedral which is the central you know catholic church it's this little tiny thing you'd never see unless you knew exactly where it was but what dominate the skyline but three great insurance companies the hancock building the aeon insurance building and the willis tower three insurance companies dominate the skyline thereupon hangs a tail the rightly ordered city is based upon the worship of the true god now extend it a little bit the rightly ordered you the rightly ordered me is one that's centered around the praise of god what sets things right or put it more negatively what knocks down the walls of the phony city this liturgical procession this right praise okay now with that little interpretive key in mind let's go back to these stories of israel's conquest israel comes into the promised land and they do indeed conquer the peoples who were there think of it this way the promised land is you that's you that's your life the problem is you are inhabited by amorites jebusites and hittites and so on i'm speaking symbolically now you are inhabited by lots of elements that are engaged in false praise what governs your emotional life to what value are your emotions turned oh my emotions serve pleasure they serve power they serve the advancement of my career they serve my status they serve my popularity then they're worshiping falsely what does your mind serve oh those things power and privilege and honor and success then they're worshiping in the wrong way what do your friendships serve what does your private life serve what's your public life serve the point is all of it should be turned to the lord all of it should be turned in right praise if it's not the city becomes dysfunctional okay let's take the next step if this spiritual reading is right now can we see why the lord says to joshua in the israelites put the ban on your enemy peoples don't read this politically or don't read it historically so much put the ban on them why because we have to eliminate in us all that is not turned to god and we can't play a halfway game we can't horse around with the evil that's in us but rather we've got to be about the task of eliminating it completely there's a great story it's not in the book of joshua but in the first book of samuel and the lord has told saul the king to put the ban on the amalekites and saul does conquer them he does kill almost all of them but he keeps some of the livestock for himself and he spares the king who has the lovely name ag so the prophet samuel shows up he says what's this i hear he hears the the you know the livestock and then he says what do i see here and there's king again and so the prophet samuel upbraids saul and then the bible says he took a sword and hacked ag to pieces i know we say kind of a brutal text but with this interpretive key in mind see what the problem with saul was he does what most of us sinners do is even in our better moments when we identify what's off in us we identify the forms of false praise in us we don't put the ban on them we allow some of it to remain and it might be under the guise of our great piety our great devotion but you know we still let a little bit of it survive it's a bit like someone coming back from the doctor and say hey i got great news they got 95 of the cancer well i mean no one's comforted by that or if i went to uh pope francis and said pope francis i you know i love being a priest i love being a bishop and i love the the demand of celibacy which is why i'm celibate you know 90 of the time you know or a a husband to his wife you know darling i love you you mean the world to me which is why you know i'm faithful to you most of the time well i mean who would find any of that comforting the point is you gotta hack ag to pieces you see i'm saying you gotta battle evil all the way down you can't let a little survive otherwise the city will in time become dysfunctional again so joshua the warrior now all of you here we're all spiritual warriors we're all involved in a spiritual struggle a spiritual battle what did paul say we're battling not just with flesh and blood but with powers and principalities yes it is a spiritual warfare and we've got to be serious about it if we want to conquer the promised land that means conquer ourselves in the presence of god and turn the whole of our life to right praise just a last word about joshua the way the book of joshua ends he gathers all the people together they've taken possession of the promised land and he says now therefore revere the lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness put away the gods that your ancestors serve beyond the river and in egypt and serve the lord there it is the book begins with a liturgical procession around the city of sin which causes its walls to fall it follows with the conquest of the promised land and ends with this and i put it to you everybody in this room at the end of the day it comes down to this which god do you serve which do you serve and then this now if you are unwilling to serve the lord choose this day whom you will serve whether the gods of your ancestors who served who were in this region beyond the river or the gods of the amorites in whose land you're living but for me and my household we will serve the lord says joshua you know my musical hero bob dylan riffed on this passage a song called you got to serve somebody i don't know if you remember that song at all you know it may be the devil or it may be the lord but you've got to serve somebody that's dead right everyone in this room is serving somebody is somebody's slave again fill in the blank it's power it's honor it's privilege it's pleasure it's my career it's even you know those are all good things but even you know my family my country well those are all good things but they should never become the object of worship so which will it be says joshua the warrior and across the ages he says it to us which will it be you got to serve somebody and the key to the well-integrated self-city society is service of the lord okay so there's joshua i mean a drink of water before the next my next warrior is not nearly as well known he's called naaman the syrian you'll find his story in the fifth chapter of the second book of kings by the way all of you who are you know training to be military leaders a lot of fighting in the in the books of of kings take a look at those but in chapter five of second kings we find the story of naaman now who was naaman he was the general in chief of the syrian army which was at the time a great enemy of israel well to be the general in chief he was probably just one position below the king of syria a person of great accomplishment obvious intelligence nobility skill someone very high in the society of his time looking out of this room there are a lot of naamans in training and i mean that as a great compliment you know the cadets here you're among the best and brightest in the whole country highly skilled intelligent motivated you wouldn't be here unless people recognized great potential in you you're all naamans in training good that's good but here is the important spiritual point name in the syrian has leprosy now when the bible says leprosy it's probably covering a number of skin diseases that we would you know specifically identify today but leprosy in the bible was seen as something really terrible because it was disfiguring you couldn't hide it in most cases and it was highly contagious so it made you something of a pariah it was very dangerous business to be a leper and that's true in the old testament and we see it in the new testament as well don't we jesus dealing with lepers very often so name in the syrian very powerful figure lots of skill and ability a star who also has this debilitating and embarrassing and humiliating problem can i suggest something now a lot of naamans and training here and you've all got leprosy what i mean is everyone in this room myself included there's something in us that we don't like that's kind of embarrassing that makes us uncomfortable that we're nervous about there's some kind of weakness there's some stability in us i don't care how accomplished you are we've all got something the great saint paul one of the greatest figures in the history of salvation paul says i have a thorn in my flesh what was it we don't know people speculate one that i find interesting is that it might have been a stammer you know moses had a stammer imagine you're called upon to preach the word of god and you've got a stammer what if paul because he in one of his letters he says you know you say i'm very impressive when i write my letters but when i come in person i'm very unimpressive so what was it he had a hard time speaking maybe was it a physical ailment of some kind was it a psychological malady we don't know but he was given a thorn in the flesh and then paul says three times i begged you lord to take it away now listen fellow lepers in this room right we've all got something hold in your mind right now hold it in your mind whatever this thing is in you that bugs you that's not right that needs healing hold in your mind and realize how many times you've asked the lord could you please take that away from me because in the hebrew idiom to say three times it meant over and over and over and over again i begged him and what's the answer paul gets remember the lord says to him my grace is sufficient for you because in your weakness my power reaches perfection now that's what i'm going to propose to you as kind of an interpretive keynote with the story of naaman it's great to have the skills and the glittering image and all the positives and this room is full of people like that it is good but the old spirit spiritual adage says where you stumble that's where you dig for treasure you know the great things the positive things they're terrific but you want spiritual treasure find out where you stumble find out where the leprosy is it'll lead you somewhere you know some examples come to mind besides paul both abraham lincoln and winston churchill suffered throughout their lives from rather profound depression watch it in lincoln's letters and so on the histories of lincoln but churchill referred to his depression as the black dog he'd say the black dog is on me so churchill i mean i look at one of the most accomplished figures of the last century wins the nobel prize deservedly for literature and in his spare time saves western civilization i mean one of the great figures in in the last century and yet at times he was so bedeviled by his depression that it was just he couldn't act he couldn't move he couldn't speak i love the story maybe you don't remember this name you're too young but lawrence olivier was generally regarded as the greatest actor of the last century so when i was coming of age you know lawrence olivier in fact i read this somewhere that when francis ford coppola was getting ready to film the godfather and he wanted to cast the central role he said to himself well who are the two greatest actors in the world and he said lawrence olivier and marlon brando he said i felt olivier with his english accent couldn't pull off a mobster from new york so he went with marlon brando not a bad choice but the point is he recognized lawrence olivier the great shakespearean actor as one of the as the greatest actor in the world when lawrence olivier was about 50 which is to say at the height of his career when everyone wanted to hear him and see him he suddenly developed debilitating stage fright here's it from his youth you know he was acting everything popular theater shakespeare the highest the lowest everything in between film and suddenly at the age of 50 he said he could barely open his mouth he was so terrified and and the reason is i think rather obvious precisely because he was seen sorry as the greatest actor in the world so he knew every audience had come to see the great olivier and he experienced debilitating stage fright or think of you know just up the hudson river now a little bit i'm not sure what the directions are here but um franklin roosevelt talk about a naming and training right the young roosevelt from this distinguished political family every possible societal connection money and everything and then he begins this glittering political career as a young man he's assistant secretary of the navy and everyone's predicting you know the governor and the president just seemed the most natural path for this brilliant young man that charmed everybody he ever met and then polio and paralysis and roosevelt you know by all accounts fell into years even decades decades-long depression self-pity a sense of fruitlessness and hopelessness his mother largely encouraged him just to retire but what made him the great figure that he was yeah to a degree his positive qualities he kept those all his life he always was a charming you know intelligent witty figure uh but everyone agrees what made him the great president he was we're not not the glittering image but the compassion that was born of his struggle with the thorn in the flesh where you stumble that's where you dig for treasure okay so naaman's in training here i applaud you but as you contemplate that leprosy that you're struggling with and we've all got one that's where you dig for treasure okay with that in mind now i'm just gonna do a little brief survey of the story naaman hears from a young israelite slave girl that there's a prophet in israel who might cure him now here's what you're i think meant to see naaman the syrian the general of the syrian army one of the highest ranking figures in his country here's from an israelite slave girl now at a time when women were seen as very much inferior a young woman more to it a young woman who's a slave more to it a young woman who's a slave and a foreigner in other words in the culture of his time you could not have imagined anyone on the lower level and yet it's from her that he hears the word of healing it's from her he discovers the presence of this prophet who might cure him they asked the great saint bernard one time name the three greatest virtues bernard said that's easy humilitas humilitas and humilitas look if the fundamental problem is pride right what's the fundamental solution humility humility that naaman had the humility to accept this word from this israelite slave girl was his first step on the road to healing maybe our leprosy whatever it is in your life i i can't name it but you know it right now whatever it is might be leading you to greater humility and then this you guys will appreciate this all you west point cadets he takes the young girl's words it's okay i'm going to go to israel to find this prophet now mind you here's the general of the nation that is an enemy to israel so who can we imagine today and now we sort of focus on the on the chinese let's say the the highest officer in the chinese army suddenly shows up in our country what's the natural reaction well i would probably get our attention wouldn't it and make us maybe a tad nervous and what's he doing here and what does he want well look at this in comes name in the syrian the king of israel tears his garments what do you mean he's looking for a prophet to cure him this must be a ruse he's out here to spy us out he's trying to set us up for something and the king of israel blocks him second spiritual lesson all of us lepers here the road to healing is always blocked let me say that again it in the bible certainly in the spiritual tradition the road to healing is always blocked not sometimes not usually always how come because we live surrounded by forces that don't want us to be healed i mean external forces to some degree would live in a fallen finite sinful world and as paul said it's not just flesh and blood but powers and principalities there are dark spiritual powers that don't want us to be healed but maybe the most devastating thing fellow sinners is there are forces in us that don't want us to be healed that in fact rather savor our leprosy maybe savor our debility remember that scene in the gospel when jesus asked the woman do you want me to heal you anything that's a dumb question of course she does that's not a dumb question at all anyone that's involved in pastoral ministry knows that not a dumb question at all because often what blocks healing is our own resistance to it i mean think of it remember the israelites coming out of egypt and and they've crossed the red sea and they've been liberated from their slavery and wasn't it better back in egypt weren't we all better fed back there and why did he leave us out in the desert and why don't we just go back well see that's all of us sinners that we prefer our captivity we prefer the dysfunction of our sin the road to healing is always blocked keep fighting keep fighting don't be don't be discouraged by that expect it and keep fighting and so naaman overcomes the resistance of the israelite king and he makes his way into the country he then is met by elisha the prophet now this is the successor to elijah the prophet remember the one who took the mantle of elijah this is elisha and elisha sends the word to naaman mind you he doesn't come to see him directly he sends word go bathe seven times in the jordan and he will be cleansed at this naaman's pride is roused again listen to him aren't there enough rivers in my own land i thought he would at least come himself and wave his hand over me and cure me i love that you know he gets the word that will heal you go bathe seven times what are you talking about couldn't he at least come in person do something directly with me his pride is stirred up part of healing fellow lepers fellow sinners part of healing is learning to trust in the wisdom of a spiritual tradition even when we can't immediately see the point of it all see i think it's a very important problem today when the religious traditions are being so thoroughly criticized when rationalist critics of religion are just you know dismissing us as as medieval superstition or pre-scientific nonsense and bronze age mythology you know i'm talking about the new atheists and there many disciples ah but this is dangerous stuff we are the inheritors of these ancient spiritual traditions that know of what they speak i mean generations centuries millennia of soul doctrine done by some of the greatest spirits that we've produced can we trust in a spiritual process even when we don't fully understand it naaman says i mean aren't there enough rivers in my own land i i don't understand one bit of what he's telling me here so what have the humility to enter into this process to trust it you know over the years i've dealt many times with people who come are coming into the faith they're intrigued by catholicism by christianity and they're they're kind of at the door and they're looking in but they're finding a lot of our practices a lot of our teachings a lot of our disciplines hard to understand i don't get it i mean it doesn't make sense to me to accept the wisdom of spiritual tradition i'll tell you two stories of one is a friend of mine who went years ago on a buddhist retreat i'm not advocating buddhism mind you but he went to blues retreat and the first day he got there the his his teacher said okay i want you to walk up and down in your room and as you do it if you lift your your foot say lifting and as you put your foot down say placing okay so lifting placing lifting placing yeah okay okay but then what do you want me to do no no that's what i want you to do well how long all day now if you know in the buddhist tradition there's a great wisdom behind this practice of mindfulness and so on i won't go into all that but the point was he was being challenged to accept something valid in a spiritual tradition that he probably didn't understand i'll give you a christian version of it the other great book called the way of a pilgrim russian spirituality it's about a man who has kind of lost his ways hit bottom and he goes to a monastery seeking spiritual wisdom and his teacher tells him i want you to go back to your room and i want you to pray that jesus prayer lord jesus christ son of the living god have mercy on me a sinner all right that's the whole prayer yeah okay i got that prayer yeah i want you to say it a thousand times a thousand times okay so he goes back to his room and he prays it a thousand times and he returns to his master and says i did it i did it and the master says good now pray it ten thousand times and that's how his spiritual journey began is he didn't understand it he didn't get it but read the book read the book the way of a pilgrim because it's all about how he learns to see the value and wisdom of this ancient spiritual practice and so naming the syrian i don't mean bathe seven times in the river look trusted have the humility to trust the wisdom of the tradition and so he does and we learn that his leprosy is cured and his skin is restored to that of a little baby and then the last move remember how joshua it's all about right worship listen to how this story ends name in the syrian before going home asks for something peculiar let me have two mule loads of earth for i will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice to any other god except the lord beautiful everybody our healing should result in right praise see what's what's the what's the end goal here is to turn our whole life to god but beautifully it was his suffering that led him there it was the leprosy that led him there it wasn't his glittering achievements it was the weakness remember the lord to paul no no my grace is sufficient for you because in your weakness my power reaches perfection where you stumble dig for treasure follow your own weakness in humility it'll lead you back to right worship okay one more soldier one more soldier the most famous of the three i've saved for last namely david david the king israel's greatest king israel's greatest warrior a figure who has found his way hesney into the imagination of the whole world i mean he's escaped in a way from simply the pages of the bible and is now all through our culture where do things go wrong on the biblical reading they go wrong when adam and eve stop listening to the voice of god and they start speaking as if they are god that's a basic biblical idea things go wrong when we stop listening and we start speaking as though we are god go right now back to the story of the original sin where does salvation start go to chapter 12 of the book of genesis it begins with this figure called abraham from orr of the keldes our armies have been around that area in recent years haven't they abraham heard the voice of the lord and he followed that voice and he came to the promised land it's in that moment everybody that the history of salvation really begins because god will form a people now around this hearing this listening this theme is so important in spiritual life because we're always listening to some voice aren't we god our culture there's so many voices speaking to us follow me don't come this way no do this and again fill in the blankets it's to follow the voice of of financial gain follow the voice of of rising in your career follow the voice of making the right friends follow the voice of getting what you need and what you want but then there's what the bible calls the tiny whispering voice what's that the voice that says be righteous what do that means i'm not rich then who cares be righteous what if that means i won't have the friends i want who cares be righteous what if that means i won't be a success who cares be righteous what did jesus say how blessed are the single-hearted that's what that means your heart the deepest part of you the highest part of you the part that's meant to be oriented to god it's got to be single pure not distracted not divided how blessed will you be how happy you'll be if you find that singleness of purpose you know even go back to the philosophical text of plato when he talks about his hero socrates following his what socrates call this daemon don't see it as a demon like the devil but he meant like this inner spiritual prompting and he followed it socrates did even when it led to his own death we call it today probably the voice of our conscience right voice john henry newman referred to the conscience as the aboriginal vicar of christ in the soul it's beautiful the conscience that voice that says be righteous is the vicar of christ the representative of christ and the soul trace this all the way back to abraham and the formation of israel which voice do you listen to well king david when is david successful now read those passages in both first and second samuel will you find the story of david when he listens to the lord [Music] even in the simplest matters lord shall i shall i go out against the jebusites lord shall i go out against the philistines lord should i set my capital here or there when david in prayer and in the orientation of his heart is listening to the voice of the lord he flourishes so we so we which voice do you hear which voice do you follow remember jesus says just the sheep know the voice of their master so my followers hear my voice david succeeds then don't you love this i've mentioned the apostle paul several times tonight when paul introduces himself in his letters he says some version of this typically i paul called by the will of god it's interesting isn't it he's in the passive voice we put such a premium on self-direction autonomy i choose it's my voice how often we hear that today let my voice be heard let my decision be paramount the bible's not at all interested in that kind of chess thumping autonomy i paul called i'm in the passive voice i've heard a voice that summoned me mind you called by the will of god not by my will not by the will of the culture not by the will of pop stars not by the will of the avatars of our society but called by the will of god to be an apostle a postelein in greek means descend beautiful again it's not like i'm setting out on my career that i've determined how the heck with that bible doesn't care about that about your career called by the will of god to be an apostle to be sent for god's purposes that's where we find our orientation that's where we find our salvation david flourishes spiritually when he's in that stance i've used this phrase a lot but i just think it's basic in the spiritual tradition your life is not about you i think all the saints are teaching us that in different ways it's your life but it's just not about you and it becomes wonderful and luminous and beautiful and creative and life-giving when you realize that it's not your career your program it's when you can surrender to the voice of god and when david does that he flourishes look when you open your bibles get back to your room and open your bibles and the story of david and bathsheba you know that it's wonderful it's very novelistic and it's terrible because it's a story of one of the greatest abuses of power in the old testament you know well it commences this way it's good now for you soldiers in training that time of year when kings go on campaign david was at home in jerusalem just rising from a siesta on the roof of his palace that's typical of the bible by the way it says things very iconically there's a whole you could do a whole novel a whole chapter of henry james that wouldn't give you that kind of clarity that time of year when kings go on campaign which david had always done all his life following the prompts of god yes lord i'll go where should i go all right i'm off yeah yeah that time of year when kings go on campaign david was at home waking up from a siesta on the roof of his palace he'd stop listening to the voice of god now the king now powerful now revered david was about his own business and what did he do instead of following the voice of god he began acting like god so from this high point he surveys the city and he spies the beautiful bathsheba even though he finds out she's married to uriah the hittite he says send her to me she comes they sleep together and she's impregnated so david commits the sin of adultery punishable severely by israelite law and he knows that and so he furthermore uses his power to cover up his crime and he calls uriah in from battle now it's very interesting he's called uriah the hittite so he's not a native born israelite and yet he's fighting in the israelite army and he is a total boy scout and i mean that now as a compliment i mean you're right talk about duty honor country that's uriah the hittite he's completely dedicated to the battle and so david calls him in and you know what dave is trying to do is to get uriah to go home and sleep with his wife and thereby kind of cover up the sin of david and so uriah informs him how the battle is going and david goes good terrific now go home to your wife and your eyes says no no i mean my uh the troops of israel are out on the sleeping in the field how can i go home to my wife david tries again he calls him in this time he gets him drunk at the end of that he says now go listen go home to your wife no and uriah sleeps down in the in the basement of the palace with other soldiers he won't do it david realizes okay that's not going to work and so he sends uriah himself with a sealed he trusts him he's such a boy scout he trusts him he's not going to open it with a sealed envelope with the instructions to send uriah into the thick of the battle where he will be undoubtedly killed and so uriah carries his own death sentence back to the front and indeed he's sent into the thick of the battle and indeed he's killed now david has covered up his adultery with murder what happens everybody when we stop listening to the voice of god and begin acting like god now again i say to the cadets to everybody here you know that we're you'll be people of great power some of you are people of great power influence cadets you'll you'll rise someday in positions of great influence what will you do with that position of influence you listen to the voice of god be righteous be righteous not rich not famous not not powerful not not beloved by your by your friends but righteous to do the right thing to be a noble person then life will flow from you trust me it will you'll become a conduit of grace to the world but when you stop listening to god that time of year when kings go on campaign if you find yourself on the roof of whatever version of the palace is for you getting up from a long siesta and looking around at what you can do for yourself isn't it lovely when the prophet nathan comes in to to name the sin of david he says to him the sword will never leave your house and by god read second samuel it never does you know there's a kind of law of karma in the bible that we do pay our sins do have these negative consequences and david experiences that whom do you listen to which voice which voice everything will follow from that okay one last point i promise i'll stop one last point about david remember i told you that joshua's story ends with worship you know from as for me and my family we're going to serve the lord the name and story ends with worship i'm going to take these mule loads of earth back so i can worship the true god of israel the david's story he gets the ark of the covenant once he establishes jerusalem as his capital so he conquers this jebusite city called jerusalem and his first move it's so good it's so wise it's so spiritually right his first move he puts on what the bible calls an ephod which was the garment of a priest of a temple priest and then with reckless abandon he dances before the ark of the covenant as they bring it into the holy city the dance of david trust me people in a liturgical tradition every time you see the priest gesturing and kneeling and bowing and processing you know what that is it's an imitation a liturgical imitation of the dance of david remember we hear in the in the book of genesis that before the original sin god and adam walked in easy fellowship together that's a beautiful spiritual symbol that's your will aligned to god's that's your emotions aligned to god that's your private life a line to god see i'm saying that we therefore dance in harmony with the lord and the liturgy is precisely our symbolic representation of that dancing in harmony with god how beautiful that david ties his kingship to this great liturgical act remember jericho the fallen city but the true city the true jerusalem is one that's predicated upon right praise dancing in the presence of the lord so keep these three figures in mind joshua don't shirk the spiritual struggle the amorites the hittites the jebusites who live within you all those forms of false worship you got to battle them everybody yes all the way down you got to make a decision you got to serve somebody who will it be naaman the syrian we've all got leprosy but where you stumble that's where you dig for treasure david the king listen listen not to the competing voices of the world but to that one voice that matters and then learn again how to dance with reckless abandon in the presence of the lord god bless you all thanks for listening tonight good to be with you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i've answered every question in your heart no there's at least one that remains your excellency thank you so much for coming here tonight and talking with us my name is francis i'm a yuck here oh could you not hear that i'm sorry you're a what harry or i'm a yuck i'm a second year kid at a sophomore yeah yeah i heard about euros already right the third year or cows you're a yuck oh you're okay yeah right go ahead yes your excellency so um i had two questions for you but you hit the first one on the head so i won't ask it okay um it was basically just you know how do we repent you know like david did and so that's the question i'm going to ask you um king david also wrote his repentance in psalm 51 after his fall with bathsheba i'll read a little bit of it for those who don't know it have mercy on me o god according to your unfailing love according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions later he says cleanse me with hyssop that i will be clean wash me and i will be whiter than snow let me hear joy and gladness let the bones you have crushed rejoice and hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity so how do we physically implement that here as young men um as men after god's heart and especially with like the vices of pornography like that is one of the greatest issues and crucibles of our spiritual evidence yeah so how could we you know fight that fight appreciate that a lot and uh i know your generation really struggles with pornography in a way mine didn't it's just because the internet has intervened and i know that from dealing with young people for many years and there are good ways to enter in the struggle now again i'm speaking as a catholic maybe two catholics obviously to use the sacrament of reconciliation sort of to get the sacramental graces from that if you're a catholic um but i think you know the honesty of david that's reflected in that beautiful psalm that's key to be able to be honest with yourself first of all and be honest with friends and spiritual companions that's very important to claim one's sin and to name it with honesty to get a good spiritual director now i'm speaking not just to catholics but anyone to have a spiritual not just friend but someone wise in the spiritual tradition who can help you move your way through that process because it's a process very often it's the it's the admission of sin which is the most important and the most difficult but then read something like dante's divine comedy is all about how someone moves from the acknowledgement of sin now through the purgatorio you know the way that dante kind of bends himself in the other direction so whatever the sin happens to be he goes running in the opposite direction but read some of those spiritual masters who teach that approach it's called enantiodromia in the classical tradition which just means i'm running to the opposite so if your problem is pride st benedict says this take the lowest place on purpose you know if your problem is uh is envy then make sure you praise someone every day that you might be envious of your problem is is that pornography or you're dealing with with lust and then you know to practice abstinence in a very strict way so but that should be done under direction too not just on your own um so those are a couple suggestions but start with psalm 51 it's not bad yeah it's it's one of our favorites yeah it's gorgeous thank you so much good um i had i had another question sure i'll throw it at you mine as well um you know as you said king david was a great king and a man after god's heart but he was still a man yeah you know in his fall he you know sleeps with one of his general's wives attempts to hide a sin by murdering by the cheapest husband you know and specifically how are we here at west point falling like king david did how are we staying back from the field of battle how are we spiritually being weak examples for others like specifically like what like what are we doing that is wrong how can we call that out yeah because i would know not being here but but i would say generally speaking this uh look at the the classic text on the virtues and the vices because you know all of us sinners are vicious in that sense that we we tend toward vice um and look at the great virtues both cardinal virtues and theological virtues the way of justice justice means do i do the right thing or am i listening to all those competing voices temperance which is the inner self-control do i let that go am i am i intemperate in my desires and so on courage courage means that i'm willing to take on external threats to justice right if i know this is the right path but yet someone's threatening me that might be a physical threat or it might just be a professional threat or whatever do i have the courage to say nevertheless i'm going to be righteous and then finally prudence which is kind of finding your way practically through the thicket of particular moral decision making those are the four cardinal virtues so practice them practice them and and form little coderies or little societies where we're going to practice the virtues together and then if you're really ready for the serious stuff then we move into the theological virtues of faith hope and love but i would say start with the natural virtues and then name their their corresponding vices and say what role do these play in my life awesome thank you so much okay please uh good evening your excellency i'm i'm not a cadet captain gayla mantis i'm an instructor here and uh i actually have a question for you um i'm uh of greek origin so i love to argue with people about theology it's just been my nature so i have a question so um i've come across you know talking with people who are either apostate or um atheist and they just say you know i understand where you're coming from and you know jesus sounds like a good person but i just don't believe i don't have the belief i don't have the faith that this individual was the son of god yeah and so he seems great and i agree that this is someone that we should emulate but i don't believe that there is a divine nature to them and what was what is your rejoinder to that yeah you're raising it it's a it's a classic and thorny sort of question um there isn't an easy answer what i mean by that is um it's mysterious what leads us finally to say i believe so read john henry newman and what he calls the illiterative sense which is the reading together of hunch intuition argument witness experience rarely do we say i believe something on the basis of a clinching argument very rarely sometimes like in mathematics or some forms of philosophical you know uh inevitabilities but normally in life like why did you marry that woman why did you become a priest so i've been asked that for 35 years why do you have a priest well if i say well because i put together the following syllogism premise a premise b well no it's what newman said you know it's this this this and it's this and it's that it's this and that that and they all kind of they came together and they they convinced me so something similar with jesus is i would say it's a common view really in modernity after emanuel khan that jesus is a great ethical figure he's an ethical exemplar and he's like you know a variety of other great philosophers and ethical heroes yeah that's easy to believe that's true it's a kind of a one-stop shopping and yeah that makes sense but what i would urge someone to do is to read the new testament with their eyes wide open the trouble is we tend to read it with our eyes i mean through certain lenses provided by modernity read it with eyes wide open and i think what you'll see readily is that's not the claim they're making so c.s lewis made this argument you know a century ago say what you want about jesus the ethical teacher kant might have said that but the new testament sure is heck ain't saying that the claim of the new testament is uh that jesus is the god of israel become flesh so that's the first step then i would say um read some of the great spiritual masters and theologians then i would say as a catholic come to mass and in other words in this variety of ways i think your your mind is brought to faith now i can't guarantee that you can lead a horse to water i mean i can't guarantee it i don't know a magical formula but i would bring this intuition this experience this witness this scriptural passage this saint you know and they all lead to the same place namely that jesus christ is the son of god but there isn't like a clinching syllogism i can construct but i would use more of the newman illiterative sense which brings together a conjuries of of different uh influences quick answer to a complex question it's a very i appreciate it thank you good thanks okay sure two more please all right so nancy i'm devin smith i'm also a yearling so you're a yuck i am a yuck um my question is so you talked a lot about listening um and like responding to god's call i was curious um how you all how you know that what you're being called to is a divine calling how you really discern making the right decision especially in times like now we're constantly being pulled to do different things and tempting to do different things some seem like they're really led by good intentions but lead down wrong paths yeah so i'm curious what your take is on knowing what you're being led to is the right path for you that god's problems it's similar in a way to my answer to the last question because i think there's not a clinching evidence but i'll say a couple things whatever is leading you toward greater love that's what god wants so if god is love and love is not a sentiment but it's willing the good of the other it's something hard edged it's too bad in english you don't really have a good word because love always sounds like lovey-dovey to us it sounds very sentimental but to love is as dorothy day said as a harsh and dreadful thing right to love is to will the good of the other what leads you more radically down that path that's what god wants right that's why thomas merton said if you have two choices the harder one is what god wants because we tend to resist what god wants we resist the path of love so what is that in your life i can't answer that um you know in in my case i i think i discerned properly that that the more radical path of love for me was the path that i took that's one indication another indication go to galatians chapter five when paul lays out the fruits of the holy spirit you have love joy peace self-control etc go to that chapter whatever path is leading you toward more and more of that that's of the holy spirit and then look what paul says about the the fruits on the other side you know when i'm i'm more hateful and i'm more violent and i'm less patient and i'm less that's the path that's not of the holy spirit also i'd pay attention to people around you they often see more clearly than you do and they might say no look at you're so much better and happier you're a much better version of yourself when you walk this path you know i mean when i've helped people discern the priesthood over the years that's often a clinching thing you say no no you're a better version of you when you're you're walking this way and some guys they i i really want to be a priest but you say it's not working you're not a good version of yourself it's making you crazy okay that could be a good sign that's not what god wants so it's all those things and many more that come together through the illiterative sense that make you say like yeah that's what i should do uh but get a good spiritual director a good spiritual friend thank you you're welcome please hello there um i think we met earlier but i just wanted to go back to david very quickly um and just his idea of being able to surrender to the will of the board um and open our ears to listen and you mentioned it earlier but especially in today's day and age we have a lot of voices i find it very hard for myself to continue to listen to the lord with so many competing demands and as the rest of us here cadets and some of the officers also in the room and as general christians and catholics and servants of the lord we're going to have to lead other people um and and further inspire them to also follow the will of god and so um kind of summarize many times in our life we're not only asked to follow god's will but we're asked um in conjunction with others whether it's through marriage whether it's through our future jobs as army officers or leading soldiers but what can and should we do when people say no on that journey and what does that process look like and being able to call people back to the will of god you know there's a section of the talk i left out i was running out of time uh but that david is called in the beautiful king james version the sweet singer of the house of israel right so he's a warrior but he's also a psalmist a singer a harpist you know traditionally and he delivers these gorgeous speeches like the challenge to goliath and how the mighty have fallen upon the heights of zion you know his uh after the death of saul and he's associated with the psalms and my point there is converted people are obligated to sing of their conversion now maybe not with david's eloquence or with those that of the great poets but all converted people are meant to become missionaries and they should become sweet singers savan balthazar says the beautiful stops you we talk about aesthetic arrest right it stops you in your tracks it it changes you think of a great movie or a great song or a great person you've met they stop you they they change you and then they send you on mission so you say hey you've got to see this movie or you've got to meet this person right so that's becoming a sweet singer of the house of israel so i would say that to to you you know as a converted person is keep singing of your conversion not obnoxiously and all that but you know to sing to let people know articulate the beauty that you found and that helps bring other people to the lord but that's the call of everybody once the lord has found you he sends you inevitably in every single case in the bible no one has the experience of god without being sent on mission right so you're sent on mission thank you you're welcome sir i'm hoping if yeah yeah sure thanks for coming over my name is ryan cruz i'm a senior here um i'm not catholic uh the first time i sort of read your name was when you do that ask me anything oh yeah sure yeah i guess i got a question about that sorry i just read through all your responses you know some people had more genuine questions and some people had sort of got your questions trying to get out i'm used to it what do you think your duty is uh spiritually to talk with someone when they approach you in bad faith like that remember to get something out of you yeah it's a fair question and i don't know if you know about this reddit ama you know they ask me anything it's uh you just kind of put yourself out there and then everyone and his brother but what's interesting is and not because they know who i am i'm sure the vast majority don't but i i just would say i'm a catholic bishop i love talking to atheists and non-believers something like that and i've done it three times now each time i was like the second or third most popular one of the entire year and again not because of me they don't know me but it shows the interest in religion i think and even if people have come to mock and they've come to you know hurl and vective at me okay fair enough um i guess that's my i like your question when people come in bad faith but i would just see it as an opportunity i mean to sow a seed anyway and and uh it's happened to me so often in my years of doing this work that someone does come in bad faith but they're a bit like um like herod listening to the preaching of john the baptist so herod imprisons john the baptist eventually kills him but when john is preaching in prison herod secretly listens to him right so i always think there are a lot of secret herods out there that that want to sound all blustery and i hate religion and i hate you and i hate god but they come to the site they've come to ask me a question or something so i i will say things like well what are you doing here then why are you watching a sermon show you know so that's what i try to do is just you know sow a seed do the best you can use even that in other words use whatever the lord gives you okay please were there other questions or is that uno mas yes sir uh my name is james conte i'm a politician so i'm a freshman uh so my question is every leader needs support and advice at some point so what has been the most crucial piece of religious advice or spiritual advice you have received i have to think about that the best religious advice i've received you know maybe i'd say this this jumped into my mind years ago when i wanted to start writing start writing books and articles and an old professor of mine at the seminary uh we were having dinner and he said you have to find your voice now i'm not advocating what i was just speaking against like me and listen to me and so on but that god i i would say was operative in my life because he wanted to accomplish something through me and that's i'm not bragging about me that's true of all of us god wants to accomplish something through us and he he wants he wants us to find that voice that will speak his truth in a distinctive way and so if i was just imitating other people i was just doing what all my teachers had done and i i'm a good imitator i always have been i can sort of hear something and repeat it but if that's all i'm doing then i'm not finding the voice that god wants me to have and that was that was important spiritual advice when i was starting my career as a as a writer and a speaker so maybe then thank you very much god bless you yeah no thank you all for the good questions i appreciate that so the game tomorrow now who's going to win oh please go ahead please hey thank you steve for coming here you're welcome so um i'm also an instructor so asking a question maybe for myself and also the cadets here that might be like me in a few years you have some great stories about people leaders where the church and the state were aligned in their purpose and so we serve in a nation where we have separation of church and state and we i hope advance many ideals of democracy and the value of an individual but i've served in purposes where unfortunately we've killed a lot of people and david and others that did so were valued what did i do was it noble it was it neutral was it sinful and how can i reconcile that i think i've done so at least but hearing your stories today just makes me think about that a little bit more so i'm gonna sit down yeah i know it's a good and it's a very ancient question you know so the very earliest christian theologians tended toward pacifism because they were coming right up out of the sermon on the mount so go back to someone like origin origen felt that a christian should not fight in the wars of the state and there were a lot of the desert monks and fathers that held that view too it was the great augustine who really brings the what we now call the just war tradition to the fore and augustine is by no means a war-mongering figure just the contrary he's advocates what i would call a metaphysics of peace and he sees peace as maybe the the distinctive mark of the city of god so all that nevertheless augustine felt in a finite conflictual world sometimes to defend certain values we have to engage in violence and then he gave these very strict you know conditions saint thomas aquinas many centuries later adds to that the catholic traditions added even further we now have seven great criteria and i you guys know the u.s odd bellum the u.s in bellow requirements of a just war so i would apply all that you know so when killing takes place in a war i'll say as a catholic we have to apply those criteria you know is it a just war and then various ways to determine that and then in the in the practice of the war was proportionality and discrimination were they honored so i would just do that i'd apply some of those categories um i think there can be a just war sure are all wars just no uh but that's a matter of prudential judgment now but i think we do the tradition provide certain criteria that help us make those determinations you're welcome you're welcome thanks everybody [Music] you

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

Views: 87,102

Keywords: west point, soldier, cadet, old testament, truth, bishop, barron, bishop barron, word on fire, catholic, talk, address, bishop barron army, army, west point talk, west point speech, west point lecture, army talk, army speech, rotc speech, army address, west point address, catholic in the army, catholic west point, united states military academy, usma, catholicism talk, catholic address, west point military academy, military motivation speech, army motivation, military motivation

Id: YFsvWeam01o

Length: 77min 46sec (4666 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 06 2022