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 and 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 Baron as he preaches

the gospel and shares the warmth and light of Christ with each of us.

Peace be with you and Merry Christmas to everybody. Listen, friends, our gospel for Christmas

day is one of the most famous texts in the entire Bible. I'm talking about the prologue

to the gospel of John. You know, many of the ways it's like the beginning of an opera,

the overture of an opera, where the major themes of the entire opera are sounded. We

have that here now in the prologue to John. In many ways, it's the entire gospel and

you might even press it. It's the entire Bible in miniature. And so it rewards a very

careful reading. You know, I'm glad that so many people that might not come to Mass on

a regular basis do come on Christmas and they'll hear this magnificent reading. Let's

take it step at a time. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the

Word was God. In the beginning, in the beginning, John is purposely drawing our attention back

to the very first word of the entire Bible, the first word of the book of Genesis is

Beresheet in Hebrew, which means in the beginning. What's John telling us that Jesus is going

to be the culmination of the great story of creation? Is that just a particular incident

from 2000 years ago? This coming into flesh of the Word is the culmination of what began

at the beginning of creation. Also, that God is always about the business of doing something

new. How wonderful in the beginning. It kind of looks back. It looks forward. God's a yes,

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