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, for this fifth Sunday of the Easter season, I'd like

to return to our consideration of the acts of the Apostles. We're reading it as

our first reading all during this Easter season. Our past is for today is

taken from the beginning of the sixth chapter of Acts and it concerns the

church in a way that I think is very compelling for our time. Again, keep in

mind this whole book is about the church. It's about the acts of Apostles.

Well, we're all in a way the successors of the Apostles. We've all been sent

by Jesus. And so we need to look as into a distant mirror to see what we should

be about. So in this passage we hear, listen, as the number of disciples continue

to grow, the Hellenous complained against the Hebrews because their widows were

being neglected in the daily distribution. So a couple of comments I think are

in order here. First, how wonderful that from the beginning, the church found

growth. Now we shouldn't be obsessed with numbers. I agree with that. But on the

other hand, we should be concerned whether our churches are growing. The

Acts of the Apostles is very interested in telling us how many were added and

...