This is Cardinal Francis George. I invite you to join me for the next few 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, we are privileged this

week to hear as our gospel that magnificent passage in the 10th chapter of Mark, concerning

the curing of Bartimaeus, the blind man. The story undoubtedly preserves a memory of a real

event. Richard Balkham is a contemporary, a Protestant biblical scholar, but he wrote a

wonderful book suggesting that when the name of a particular person is retained in one of

these biblical stories, think of the daughter of Jairus, for example, and here Bartimaeus

is named. When that happens, Balkham says, it signals the dense facticity of the story,

the historicity of it. It's based on something that really happened. Perhaps because that person,

him or herself, is still around to have corrected and communicated the narrative. So let's say,

I mean, let's presume this really happened. Bartimaeus would still be around as the early Christians

began to tell the story, and he would have said, well, here's the way it happened. Or no, no,

don't tell it that way. This is how it really happened. But as I've often said, these stories that

are real, they tell real history are included in the gospels usually because they also have a powerful

symbolic and spiritual valence. Put it differently, the gospel writers aren't just journalistic

recorders. They're great theological artists. So as they tell the story, they're also speaking at a

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