Friends, welcome to Word on Fire, Catholic Ministries. Word on Fire is an

apostolate dedicated to the mission of evangelization, using media both old and

new to share the faith on every continent and to facilitate an encounter with

Christ and His Church. The efforts of Word on Fire engage the culture and bring

the transformative power of God's Word where it is most needed. Today we invite

you to join Bishop Robert Barron as he preaches the gospel and shares the

warmth and light of Christ with each one of us.

Peace be with you. Friends, we've come now to this sort of climactic Sunday of

Advent, the fourth Sunday of Advent. We are anticipating Christmas.

Something I've said many times, anyone that's been following my work knows, as

long as we approach Jesus abstractly, we're not going to understand Him correctly.

Now what I mean is as long as we see Him simply as a teacher of timeless

spiritual truths and moral principles, and that's the way frankly He's seen by

many people in the West today. They'll say, oh yeah, Jesus, He's great. You know,

He teaches love and nonviolence and so and He reminds me of the great Sufi

poets and He reminds me of Hindu mystics and Jewish rabbis, etc. But see, as

long as we approach Him just that way, we won't come close to appreciating fully

what He means. Again, mind you, I'm not saying those things, those connections can't

be made. I mean, you can distill some of these teachings from from what Jesus says,

but if that's all He is, we're not getting what makes Him really interesting. The

New Testament authors, so Paul, the gospel writers, etc., consistently reach to

the Old Testament for their categories of understanding. Right? So that's that

...