Shadowing Practice: Become Someone for Others - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Peace be with you.
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Friends, many years ago when I was a student at Mundelein Seminary, we had a great professor named Dr. Richard Issel.
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He was a psychologist, and he taught these courses in counseling, and one was called, I remember, the Psychology of Successful Parish Priesthood.
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I took all of his courses.
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He was a great teacher.
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And one principle I remember from Issel is this.
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He said, if you want to be happy, stop worrying about being happy and get on with with becoming fulfilled.
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Happiness — and Aristotle knew this too, a long time before Dr. Issel — happiness is a kind of byproduct of fulfillment.
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The worst thing you can do is to turn inward and fuss about, why am I not happy?
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How do I become happy?
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Forget about being happy.
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Become fulfilled, and the happiness will take care of itself.
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Something similar I found in Jordan Peterson's Reflections, where he says, self -consciousness is equivalent to misery.
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And what he means, I think, is this turning inward, the self -preoccupation, is equivalent with misery.
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So you want to be psychologically healthy, well, forget about yourself.
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Stop fussing about yourself and get about the business of fulfillment.
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It's a very helpful principle, I find.
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And I bet now those listening to me, when you find yourself most unhappy, it's that you're just fussing about yourself.
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You're turned inward.
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You're worrying about what might have been and mistakes you made.
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Forget about that.
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Forget about being happy.
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Get on with being fulfilled.
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In other words, there's a kind of extroverted quality that's associated with happiness.
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Well, I always think of this when I come across our reading for today.
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We're reading from the great
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Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' paradigmatic teaching.
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Jesus says to his disciples, "'You are the salt of the earth.
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You are the light of the world.
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You are a city set on a hill." So you say, okay, the sermon that Jesus gives is sort of the key to happiness.
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It begins with the Beatitudes, right?
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Beatitudo means happiness.
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So if I want to be happy, I better follow this.
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Well, look what he tells his followers to be.
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Something for the sake of the other.
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So look at the first one.
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You are the salt of the earth.
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Well, in Jesus' time in the ancient world, you know, long before refrigeration, if you wanted to preserve meat, well, you would salt it.
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You want it to enhance its flavor.
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And that's true today, of course, too.
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You put salt on it.
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What's one thing you never would do if you have guests over at your house.
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Well, I'm serving dinner, and here's a plate of salt for you.
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Well, because salt is not salt for its own sake.
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Salt exists for the sake of the other.
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What's the role of the Christian in the world?
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It's not to be fussily preoccupied with his or her own happiness.
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Rather, it's to become something for the sake of the other other.
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Salt makes things spicy and tasty and interesting.
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Salt preserves what's worth preserving.
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So what's the role of the Christian in the world?
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It's not, well, let me try to be as happy as I can be.
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Let me cultivate my own holiness.
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No, you will become happy and you'll become holy in the measure that you become someone for others.
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So what does it mean to be salt, to be the spicy element within the society.
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I mean that
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Christians would invade all the expressions of the secular culture —entertainment and sports and business and finance and everything.
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Christians invade that space in a spicy,
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salty way to bring something of the style and energy of Jesus into all these elements of life.
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See, a Christian should wake up every morning and say not, well, now, how can I become happier today?
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But rather, how can I make the world more Christ -like?
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How can I be salt for the world?
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How can I spice things up and preserve what's worth preserving?
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I think, everybody, your whole approach to the spiritual life will shift if you think along those lines.
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And look at the second one.
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He says, you are the light of the world.
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Well, you never see light.
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Light in itself is not visible.
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Rather, light is that by which we see other things.
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You walk into a dark room and you're disoriented until someone turns on the light, and then, ah, now I can see what's in the room.
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I always think here of the church in Rome has the wonderful Caravaggio paintings, and they're in the dark,
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and you have to put little coins in a machine to light up the picture.
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And then, boom, the light comes on, and there's Caravaggio in all its splendor.
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And you can see it for a few minutes, and the lights go out, and you've got to put more money in.
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You, my followers, says Jesus, you're the light of the world.
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You are that by which things become more visible and beautiful and appealing.
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People will see beautiful things because of you.
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Now, see, what if you thought about your spiritual life in those terms?
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So my goal today is not to make myself happier.
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No, it's to make others happier.
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being by my own style of being in the world, a light that illumines others.
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Or think of, you know, I often use the example of halos around the heads of saints.
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How come they're depicted that way?
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Because the saint is a light for others.
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How should I live?
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Well, I look to a saint.
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A saint becomes like a luminosity on the road.
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Let's say I'm stumbling around in the dark.
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I don't know what direction my life should take.
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Well, then I see a saint, and suddenly the light goes on, and I can see where I'm going.
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I think of the role that Thomas Aquinas played in my own life when I was a 14 -year -old kid,
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and Thomas was like a light going on.
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Or think of someone who's, you know, they lost their way,
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and they come across the story of a Maximilian Kolbe or a Mother Teresa or the little flower,
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and suddenly the luminosity of that personality and the humanity lights up their path.
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They see where they're supposed to go.
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Huh.
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That's your job, Christian, in the world.
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What if you woke up every day and said, that's my job today, is by my own sanctity to become a light for others to see?
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And then this last image that we might not get as readily.
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You're a city set on the hill.
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Well, see, we've got GPS and everything else and maps to navigate.
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But in the ancient world, they had to navigate in a more, I suppose, clumsy way.
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But one of the ways they navigated was they'd see cities on a hilltop.
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Oh, you've got to move in the direction of that city,
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or you have to come to that city and then you've got to move further west or whatever it was.
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The city on the hill was a means of navigation.
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It was a landmark that everybody could see.
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Huh, that's your job, Christian.
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to be a city set on the hill so that everybody can get their bearings from you.
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Does that make sense?
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We're all wandering around trying to make our way to God.
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Well, how do I find the way?
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Well, look, there's that city.
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Oh yeah, move in that direction.
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Well, that's exactly the role the saints play, isn't it?
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They give directionality to our lives.
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But what if you thought about your own spiritual life precisely in those terms? that your distinctiveness is not for you.
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It's for the sake of someone who's trying to find his or her way.
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Your salt, your light, your city set on a hill.
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You know, this has occurred to me with all of this in mind, is look at Catholics in America,
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so my home country, how we kind of oscillate back and forth between extremes in a way.
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When Catholics arrived here, you know, let's say middle of the 19th century and on, we were arriving at a very Protestant culture.
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And so it was important for Catholics to maintain their distinctiveness.
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And so parishes and Catholic schools and sort of a Catholic subculture developed.
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The stress was on distinctiveness, what makes us uniquely
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Catholic over and against the wider culture.
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Well, is that good?
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Yeah, because salt can lose its saltiness, right? and the light can go out,
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and the city built on the hill can be raised to the ground.
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And so, yes, you do have to be distinctive.
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But the purpose is not to rest in your own distinctiveness.
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The purpose is now to use your distinctiveness as a guide and a light and a spice for others.
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So think of this now.
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When Catholics first arrived here, they were kind of stressing distinctiveness.
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Now, the years I was coming of age, after Vatican II, we went to the other extreme.
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The Church was kind of so open to the world that it lost a sense of what makes it unique.
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The biblical principle is always this sort of tensive, healthily tensive principle.
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We are distinct, salty, luminous, elevated, uh -huh, for the sake of the other,
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not for our own sake.
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What's distinctive to us uniquely
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Catholic is for the sake of the wider world.
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I'm not meant to kind of crouch behind walls and cultivate my private Catholicism.
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No, no. Indeed, kataholos, Catholic, means according to the whole.
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The Church exists for the world.
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We're distinctive for the sake of the world.
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All of that is implicit in these great images that Jesus uses.
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Now let me just close by drawing some attention to reading number one, which is from the prophet Isaiah.
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So if you say, okay, what is it?
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What is this distinctive quality?
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What makes us salty and spicy and luminous and so on?
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Well, listen to what Isaiah says in our first reading.
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Share your bread with the hungry.
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Shelter the oppressed and the homeless.
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Clothe the naked when you see them.
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Listen now.
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Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your wounds shall quickly be healed.
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It's really interesting now in light of what we've been talking about.
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What's the light?
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What's the light?
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These actions.
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Now, building upon this, the Church develops the corporal works of mercy, which I've talked about a lot.
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Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the imprisoned, visit the sick, bury the dead.
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Concrete things.
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And when you perform these acts of love, what happens?
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Your light will break forth like the dawn.
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You'll be light for others.
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And then listen, though.
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And your wound shall quickly be healed.
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What's the wound?
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I'm just not happy.
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I'm just not content.
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What's the matter?
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Don't turn inward and fuss about it.
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Remember Dr. Issel.
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You know, you want to be happy, forget about your happiness.
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You want to be holy, forget about your holiness.
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You want the wound healed.
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Old, turn your life into a gift for others.
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Salt, light, city on the hill, and it looks like these concrete works of mercy.
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Here's just the last thing from Isaiah that I'll add to the works of mercy.
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Listen, if you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation, and malicious speech,
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then light shall rise for you.
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There it is again.
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Where's the light going to come from?
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Well, he adds these, which I think are very relevant to us today.
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Oppression, false accusation, malicious speech.
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Go online any time of the day or night.
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How often now in the social media context we engage in just this kind of malicious speech,
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attacking people's characters, going after them.
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Remove that.
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You want to be happier?
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Remove that from your life, and light will shine forth.
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Remember, everybody, it's the extroverted move.
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It's the move out from yourself.
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The Christian exists not for herself.
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The Christian exists for the world.
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Light, salt, city set on the hill.
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And God bless you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Become Someone for Others - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: salt, sake, Catholic, Christian, happiness. This video has 153 sentences and 2005 words to shadow. The speech runs for 13:40. The speaker talks at a steady 147 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 83% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start. 26 of its 153 sentences are questions, so it is good practice for question intonation and short answers.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| sake noun | /ˈseɪ̯k/ | Cause, interest or account. |
| happiness noun | /ˈhæpinɪs/ | The emotion of being happy; joy; elation. |
| saint noun | /seɪnt/ | A deceased person whom a church or another religious group has officially recognised as especially holy or godly; one eminent for piety and virtue. |
| preserve verb | /pɹəˈzɝv/ | To protect; to keep from harm or injury. |
| principle noun | /ˈpɹɪn.sɪ.pəl/ | A fundamental assumption, fundamental law or guiding belief. |
| distinctive adjective | /dɪˈstɪŋktɪv/ | Distinguishing, used to or enabling the distinguishing of some thing. |
| spicy adjective | /ˈspaɪsi/ | Of, pertaining to, or containing spice. |
| fuss noun | /fʌs/ | Excessive activity, worry, bother, or talk about something. |
| spiritual adjective | /ˈspɪɹɪt͡ʃuəl/ | Of or pertaining to the spirit or the soul. |
| arrive verb | /əˈɹaɪv/ | To reach; to get to a certain place. |
| mercy noun | /ˈmɝsi/ | Relenting; forbearance to cause or allow harm to another. |
| heal verb | /ˈhiːl/ | To make better from a disease, wound, etc.; to revive or cure. |
| fulfill verb | /fʊlˈfɪl/ | To satisfy, carry out, bring to completion (an obligation, a requirement, etc.). |
| salty adjective | /ˈsɔlti/ | Tasting of salt. |
| navigate verb | /ˈnæv.ɪ.ɡeɪt/ | To plan, control and record the position and course of a vehicle, ship, aircraft, etc., on a journey; to follow a planned course. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come across verb | To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition. | |
| get on with verb | To proceed with; to begin or continue, especially after an interruption. | |
| go out verb | To leave, especially a building. | |
| light up verb | To illuminate, to bring light to something, to brighten. | |
| wake up verb | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | To stop sleeping; to awake. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- How do I become happy?
- It's a very helpful principle, I find.
- How can I be salt for the world?
- How come they're depicted that way?
- You want to be happier?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was called · being fulfilled · can be raised |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has occurred · I've talked |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 29 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, you're, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thirsty /ˈθɝs.ti/, clothe /ˈkloʊð/, catholicos /kəˈθɒlɪkəs/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: malicious /məˈlɪʃəs/, shelter /ˈʃɛltə/, oppression /əˈpɹɛʃən/, accusation /ˌæk.jʊˈzeɪ.ʃ(ə)n/, associate /əˈsoʊʃi.ət/
- Long words — get the stress right: accusation /ˌæk.jʊˈzeɪ.ʃ(ə)n/, associate /əˈsoʊʃi.ət/, navigation /nævɪˈɡeɪʃən/, psychologist /ˌsaɪˈkɑl.ə.d͡ʒɪst/, distinctiveness /dɪsˈtɪŋ(k)tɪvnɪs/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like sake, happiness, saint.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.