Good morning, this is Cardinal Francis George, and I invite you to join me for the next few minutes to reflect with Father Robert Baron on the word of God, which is the word on fire.

Father Baron will challenge 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 Archdiocese of Chicago through the generosity of Sacred Heart Parish and Winetka now presents the word on fire.

Peace be with you. Friends, I think the religious life, the spiritual life, has to be led somewhere in between fear and complacency.

If you talk to a lot of older Catholics, they will complain that in some ways their spiritual life was dominated by fear, fear of God, the fear of committing sin, the fear of being sent to hell.

I think the pendulum though has swung in the other direction.

I think the problem with younger Catholics is the other one, that their spiritual life has become a little bit too complacent.

Who cares? God is love, God is compassion, no matter what I do, everything will work out fine.

Questions of salvation, of judgment, God's anger, those are pretty much bracketed.

What do we do with this? We have to avoid the two extremes, fear and complacency.

Look, if you're a baseball player, you're standing at home plate. If you're afraid, you're terrified, unless I get a hit, the team will go under.

Unless I get a hit, the coach will cut me from the team. If you're living in constant fear, you'll be a lousy hitter by the same token.

If you're at the plate and you have no sense of excitement and focus, you're not keyed up at all, you haven't practiced.

Well, you'll also be a lousy hitter. The good hitters live in between fear and complacency.

Some of the seminarians here at Monday line where I teach will get up for their first homily, their practice homily, when they're petrified, they're terrified.

Well, that makes for a lousy homily. On the other hand, if a priest gets up and he hasn't prepared, he hasn't thought, he hasn't focused, and he gives a homily in utter complacency, that too will be a less than satisfying performance.

I think this gives us a clue to the language the Bible uses.

Some people will say, look, there's all kinds of tough language in the Bible. God's demand, God's anger.

We see it as wonderful passage from Luke's gospel. People speak to Jesus about the tower and silhouette that fell on 18 people and killed them.

And Jesus says to them, unless you repent, you will perish the same way they did.

And then he tells it, really terrible, parable of the fig tree. Here's a fig tree that's not producing fruit.

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