Bishop Barron tells youth in Rome: Listen to God’s voice and accept his mission

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 31, 2025 / 15:35 pm

Bishop Robert Barron in Rome this week urged young people to follow God and reject worldly goods, calling on youth to “find their mission” and pursue the Lord “into the depths.”

“God has an idea of the saint you were meant to be,” Barron said during the keynote address at the Jubilee of Youth’s National U.S. Pilgrim Gathering on July 30.

Barron, the bishop of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, and founder of the Word on Fire ministry, emphasized that modern culture promotes individualism at the expense of God’s journey with us.

Throughout his speech, Barron referenced biblical figures — including Peter, Abraham, Jacob, and Jonah — to highlight the challenges and rewards of answering God’s call.

There’s nothing more important in our lives than discerning our mission, Barron told the crowd.

He suggested that anyone discerning their mission should start by asking the questions “Whom do you worship? What voice do you listen to? And what’s the mission that voice is giving to you?”

A true mission, Barron said, leads a person to greater self-gift. “Listen to the voice … and accept the mission,” he told the crowd of young people.

Struggling with a small podium and his prepared speech, Barron opted to ad lib about his journey in Rome.

Juxtaposing the ruins of Rome with the present Catholic Church, Barron said: “Don’t believe them when they tell you religion’s in decline. … What’s in us is greater than anything in the world.” 

“Where are the mighty signs of Roman power? Think of the Colosseum. Think of the Forum. Think of the Palatine Hill. Think of the Circus Maximus. What are they? They’re ruins.” 

“But where’s the great empire that was announced by Peter the Apostle?” he continued. “It’s all over the world, on every continent. It’s alive. And where is the successor of Peter who was put to death in the Circus of Nero and buried away on the Vatican Hill? Where’s his successor?”

“I saw him last night, didn’t you? Riding around St. Peter’s Square,” the bishop said to thunderous applause. 

Barron warned against living in “the little shallows” of material desires and urged attendees to pursue a higher calling.

He paraphrased Abraham’s journey as our own: “Leave the country of who you are now. Leave that boring space of the old self, preoccupied with its own freedom, and go to the land I will show you. What’s the land? It’s the saint you’re meant to be.”

Diving into the etymology of the word worship — which descends from an older English word, worth ship — Barron said that what we hold the highest is what’s worshipped. 

He warned the assembly not to worship money, status, or family. “If I make them my central preoccupation, I will fall apart on the inside — I will disintegrate and I will sow disintegration around me.”

“You become what you worship,” Barron said.

He also suggested that those struggling with mental health might reflect on what they worship.

Jacob also wrestled with an angel, embodying the fortitude of God’s desire to be with us. “We can’t fathom the meaning of our suffering. Don’t give up. Wrestle,” Barron said.

“We know the call to radical love,” Barron said. “But we tend to go the other way.” Ignoring that call, he warned, leads to internal and external storms. “Refusing your mission is bad for you and the people around you.”

Barron posed and answered the question “What happens when we accept the mission?” He replied with a quote from the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar: “You don’t know who you are until you find your mission.”

He concluded by linking the lives of Peter, Paul, and Jesus, each of whom embraced self-sacrifice for the good of others. 

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“That’s the same call they’re giving to all of you,” Barron said.