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, our first reading for the Feast of Corpus Christi today brings

us back to one of the most important moments in salvation history and one of the most compelling

sections of the Bible. Moses is speaking to the Israelites as they are about to enter the

Promised Land and he asked them to recall the 40 years of their wandering in the desert.

Listen now as Moses speaks. Remember how for 40 years now the Lord God has directed all

your journey in the desert. See, the movement of the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised

Land is a metaphor for the spiritual journey from sin to salvation. And here's where we can

all move into the story because we're all like the Israelites making our way from death to life,

from dysfunction to integration, from sin to grace. We're all on the same journey.

Are there any people listening to me right now who have been perhaps through a 12-step process

of dealing with an addiction? When you were caught in your addiction, whether to sex or

to alcohol or to drugs or whatever it is, when you were caught in that addiction with all

of its pain and confusion and alienation from your family, loss of job, etc. you were

in Egypt, you were in a kind of slavery. Then perhaps of the intervention of good friends

...