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, as we continue our focus on the old Testament

text, that's been going to be my focus during this whole year is, is, well,

look at the Gospels of course, but with a special emphasis on the first reading,

the Old Testament text, we turn this week to the 19th chapter of the book of

Leviticus. Leviticus is a very important book in the Bible. It finds itself in

the Torah, you know, the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus,

Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. That's the fundamental law of Israel. It's

the cornerstone in many ways of the biblical revelation. As the name suggests,

this book has a lot to do with the Levites. Levites were the priests of

ancient Israel. That's why there's a lot of talk in the book of Leviticus about

ritual and sacrifice and taboo and clean and unclean and all the things

happen to do with temple and ritual and worship and so on. In a word you might

say the book of Leviticus is laying out the practices by which Israel set

itself apart from the other nations. You know, the term in Hebrew for holy is

Kaddosh and that has the sense of setting apart. What I find interesting here

...