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, the gospel for today is a very important theme. The

theme of to give it its traditional name, fraternal correction. So the act and

the art of constructive criticism of our brothers and sisters. Now here's the

problem right away. Our culture is kind of a paradox or a dilemma. On the one hand,

we're a very non-judgmental society. It's about the worst thing you can be as

judgmental towards someone or discriminate against them or tell them they're

doing something wrong. Who are you to tell me what to do? That's deep in our

cultural DNA. But at the same time, let's be honest. And here's the paradox. At the

same time, we are hyper-critical each other. You know, we critique each other for

our political point of view, for the way we look, for the positions we take on

social media. Social media don't get me started. Talk about the prevalence of

criticism. Some of the most unconstructive criticism that you can possibly imagine.

Something I often recommend to people that come to me for spiritual

direction is do a do an examination of conscience at the end of the day. How

critical was I of other people today? And how constructive was that criticism?

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