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, our first reading for this weekend is taken from a

book that we don't consult that frequently in the course of the liturgical year.

Talking about the book of Syrac. In older versions of the Bible, Syrac was

referred to as the Book of Ecclesiasticus. Not to be confused by the way with

the book of Ecclesiastes, they call that now the Book of Cohaleth. I guess I've

now confused everybody. But the book of Syrac is the one we're reading from. It

belongs just to put it in its setting to the collection of what's called the

Wisdom Literature. The Bible is divided into the Old Testament into the Torah,

the first five books, the Pentateuch, so-called, and then we have the historical

books going from Joshua through Second Chronicles. You've got the prophetic

books, so Isaiah, Jeremiah, and then all the minor prophets and so on. But then you

also have this Wisdom Literature. These would be very literary poetic texts that

are kind of reflecting on the meaning of Revelation. Think here of the book of

Psalms, the book of Proverbs, the book of Wisdom, the song of songs, etc. Well,

the book of Syrac belongs to this collection. It's presented as the sayings of

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