This is Cardinal Francis George. I invite you to join me for the next two minutes to reflect

with Father Robert Barron on the Word of God, which is the Word on Fire. Word on Fire Catholic

Ministries is a non-profit ministry at the forefront of Catholic evangelization, using

new media to spread the faith and every continent. Father Barron challenges us to open our hearts

to the Word on Fire, which is God's Word of Love for each of us. If our hearts are open,

the Lord can change and transform us so that we might speak with love about the one who

is love. The global benefactors of Word on Fire, with the support of the Archdiocese of

Chicago, now present Word on Fire. Peace be with you. Friends, today I want to spend

the whole of this homily, explicating our extraordinary second reading, which is a passage

from the 21st chapter of the Book of Revelation, which is to say, the very end of the last

book of the Bible. That's important. We've come with this passage to the climax of the

story. If you've been reading a novel, finding it fascinating to follow its twists and turns,

the adventures of its many characters, and you've come finally to the end, will you desperately

want to know how the whole thing works out? No one's going to read a fascinating novel

and then stop two pages from the end. I don't know, the whole point of it was to get there.

Well, that's where we are with this reading. We're at the very climax of the story. Now,

the Bible obviously is a collection of a wide variety of texts from varying periods written

by different authors addressed to various audiences. Nevertheless, in an important sense,

the Bible is also one book. It's one great story, filled with twists and turns, yes, filled

with intriguing characters, and told by one great author. That's why, of course, we speak of it

as the word of God, and not just a collection of ancient texts. So, how does the story, which began

with creation in the fall, continued with the formation of a people Israel, reached a kind of

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