Bishop Barron on David and the Priesthood (Part 1 of 2)

I had the privilege last week of going to st. Mary's Seminary in Cleveland and I gave a lecture there but I also spoke to the seminarians and I used the of sort of context of King David because I've been working on this commentary in second Samuel and I'm deriving from the David story certain principles for priestly spirituality so I thought I'd share some of that you know a lot of seminarians and priests watch the videos but I think anybody interested in the spiritual life could draw some inspiration from the story I talk first about David is someone who listens to the Lord one thing it's clear down all the first and second samuel is David at his best is someone who listens to Yahweh what does the Lord want him to do keep in mind David is anointed by Samuel come out of the blue you know he tells Jesse go find your sons and no it's not him at him and finally the youngest one comes and Samuel anoints him the spirit rushes upon him David wasn't a member of a royal family he wasn't an aristocrat he was a shepherd kid you know but he was called by this higher power then throughout his life at his best David even in small matters consults the Lord in other words he places his will in the context of a much higher will the will of God st. Paul says in Ephesians you know there's a power already at work in you that can do infinitely more than you can ask or imagine there's a whole spiritual program in that because most of us are into autonomy we're into our own will I decide it's my project it's my life my plans but the Bible is always telling the opposite story that your little projects and plans are nothing compared to what God wants to accomplish through you and with your cooperation David goes wrong by the way precisely when he falls into that autonomous stands the key to happiness and I'll go out a limb here and for anybody is just that is to realize it's not the ego drama it's your little drama you're the producer director and star it's the theö drama that matters it's God's drama God's the director God's the producer you're in it maybe you're not the star though you've got a role to play and the idea is to find out what that is there's a move into a passive stance I know right away we don't like that passive bad actives good but see now we're dealing with God God is that power who wants nothing but what's best for you therefore a surrender to God is a surrender to your own best self now that's a high paradox but it's right at the heart of the biblical revelation David is someone who had his best does that he listens keep in mind too that Israel is defined really as a people who listen Adams problem every debt story symbolically Adams problem is didn't listen some of the Lord told him what to do what not to do but he set off on his own path God begins the rescue operation by forming a people Israel after his own heart the first member the founder that family is Abraham who hears the voice of the Lord and we hear the Bible listens to it see that's always a key to Israel it's a people that listen that's why in Deuteronomy 6 the great Shaima prayer here o Israel the Lord your God is got alone that's why Paul says in Romans that faith comes from hearing it's not just a propositional statement it's about this shift in attitude I'm not running my life rather I listen to a higher voice so that's the first lesson I think from David your second one and maybe especially now for priests and seminarians David is the sweet singer of Israel in that beautiful phrase that's the King James translation of the Hebrew he's the sweet singer of Israel first thing we hear about him in 1 Samuel is that he's a singer he goes to Saul member to soothe Saul who is this kind of going very disquieted person and David plays and sings for him of course David delivers himself a bit gorgeous elegy for Saul and Jonathan when the two of them are killed on Mount Gilboa how the mighty have fallen on the heights and the beautiful poem think of young David before Goliath who speaks that magnificent you know speech in defiance of Goliath and the Israelites overhear him and the very end of second Samuel we have essentially at Psalm 18 but placed in the mouth of David and he sings this gorgeous song to God and of course he's associated with all the Psalms how many actually go back to David who knows maybe some of them do but he's associated with the Psalms he's the sweet singer of Israel he gives voice to the deepest aspirations of the people well every priest seems to me has to be a sweet singer a a big part of a priest job is to give voice to the things of God to give voice to the longings of the people oftentimes all you've got as a priest are words you know to bring to someone's suffering to bring to someone's pain to bring to a difficult situation to bring to a joyful situation you sing forth these deep truths not only in sermons but maybe primarily in sermons but every time you counsel someone every time you visit someone in the hospital or nursing home and you bring a word of healing a word of truth maybe it's a harsh words I'm some poetry is harsh maybe it's a word that someone has to hear but you have to sing you've got to be good with language I think to be a priest Aristotle long ago said the three great things you need to be a persuasive speaker our logos pathos and ethos not the three musketeers they sound like it but it's the Laguz word logic reason persuasive speech should be reasonable one of the problems we have I think in preaching is just that that it's a lot of bazooey and not a lot of ordered speech one reason speech is interesting and persuasive is that it's structured there's a beginning middle and end there's an argument there's a conclusion that you're drawing your listener to so Lagos is key but secondly pthose which is feeling or passion right our salt said that people only listen to an excited man city means is it if you can't get excited about it you know then why should someone else get excited about it why should someone else pay attention if you can't communicate some passion for it so one problem with homilies they might be illogical in some cases but they have no pay thoughts behind them they've no feeling Fulton sheen you know used to say the priest should not to work with a text and his line was you know well good god man if you can't remember how do you expect me to remember it you know and so the idea is that you enter into it with all of your pain thoughts as well as logons and then finally I told the seminarians the most important for Aristotle is ethos which means character it's the character of a speaker that makes the speech persuasive one thing that especially young people could sniff out in a second is a phony is a hypocrite one reason john paul ii even when he's an old man and very infirm barely able to speak but was able to hold the attention of young people all over the world one reason for that i think george Wagle said correctly is they sensed his integrity even though he wasn't flashy at that point is like earlier he was he had more you know kind of charisma but at the end it wasn't a flashy figure but they knew he was dripping with ethos its dripping with character and that made him compelling so logos pathos ethos are key to being a sweet singer of Israel every preacher is a sweet singer of the new Israel to church think of Churchill or Lincoln you know at key moments in their nation's history all they had to bring really was language but that hugely impacted the country they were leading so Lincoln at the Gettysburg Address I mean how many remember Lincoln's strategic moves in the Civil War but everybody remembers the Gettysburg Address because at that point he was a sweet singer of America or Churchill in 1940 you know when literally all they had was language and he brought to bear you know I'll give you blood toil tears and we'll fight on the beaches we'll fight on the streets you know what I mean he he brought he was a sweet singer of Great Britain at its moment of great crisis so that's key to David it's key to any priest in the church I think third thing I reflected on was David and Saul it's one of most poignant passages really in the whole Testament I think you know that Saul brought David and to sing to him Saul commissioned him to go and fight Goliath Saul loves David in one sentence and he makes him captain of his army etc but then there's that dreadful moment when the women come out to greet David and Saul and they sing Sol slew his thousands but David his tens of thousands and right away the dark Spirit comes upon us all the dark spirit of of envy of resentment of jealousy you know here's this kid I've made him what he is I put him in place and now no he's over me and boy now he wants to be king at that point Saul begins to conspire against David even throw his spear as at David eventually sends an army after him and it's a terrible moment in the story because Israel is battling of the Philistines symbolic now of the church's battle against sin and death and all the powers of negativity right so the Philistines are kind of a symbol of all that up and down the ages Israel's meant to battle them the name of God the trouble is now Israel's fallen into war with itself which means they're making no progress against the Philistines see that's the best way for the Philistines up and down the ages to today to defend themselves is to sow the spirit of discord among the Israelites so Saul and David fight each other and eventually David you know is is forced to become a traitor really he goes into the into the hands of the Philistines it's a bit like at the height of World War two Churchill becoming a Nazi I mean it's extraordinary part of the story David actually goes over to the Phillips line you see what your jealousy can do your jealousy can make a good person bad it can drive a good person to a kind madness or distraction but the lesson I was drawing out for the students and for you know pre seminarians really anybody listening is this is just the worst thing that we can do as a church is to allow the spirit of rivalry jealousy to overtake us you know I'm not picking on any particular Chancery office or diocese it's just the way human beings are but you know a good idea will surface let's say and really is a good idea it really will help the people of God it really will benefit the church but it goes into the maw of a bureaucracy that's often characterized by rivalry jealousy turf wars wasn't my idea I didn't get the memo how come you're doing that I supposed to be doing that and before you know it the church is at war with itself or think of a happens all the time you know a young hotshot priest arrives in a parish he's like David maybe he's he's charismatic he's a good speaker people all love him and before you know it the people are singing some version of well Saul slew his thousands but David his tens of thousands oh we love father pastor but oh this new priest we really like him that can lead to the same problem you know one of the great graces of my own life was my first pastor father Joe Canaan who was a great man allowed me when I came on the scene as a young guy you know and he rejoiced to that he rejoiced in the fact that people you know like my preaching or like what I was doing and he never tried to block me or stand in my way but he kind of reveled in it realizing look we're on the same team here you know and your your fight in the battle I'm trying to fight so let's do it together I told the students in Cleveland that you know maybe some of them will arrive in the parish as David but they might grow up to be sold to we often time will come when another figurer price what do you do with that see the medieval doctors said that the worst form of Invidia is envy is NVIDIA Clara callous clerical envy and it gets right even to this day the worst form of jealousy can be clerical jealousy look we're fighting the same side here you know Harry Truman said and this lines always saved my mind he said there's no limit to what we could achieve politically if no one cared about who got credit and it applies across the board isn't it there's no limit to what we could achieve as a church if no one cared we got the credit for that's a lesson from the David's all of battle

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

Views: 42,144

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Keywords: Fr. Robert Barron, Word On Fire, Catholic, Ministry, Catholicism, Christianity, religion, faith, spirituality, bible, Church, God, Jesus, Christ, Lord, Old Testament, David, Israel, King David, Samuel, Abraham, Saul, Goliath, Aristotle, Fulton Sheen, John Paul II, Churchill, Lincoln, Harry Truman, Arc of the Covenant, Bathsheba, Uriah, Eli, Amnor, Tamar, Absalom, priesthood, priests, seminarians, seminary

Id: nViOF3Qcsc8

Length: 13min 53sec (833 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 02 2011