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. Friends on the second Sunday of Advent, St. Matthew compels us to come

to grips with the great figure of John the Baptist. It's really impossible to grasp

the significance of Jesus without passing through as it were the cleansing bath of John

the Baptist. To shift the metaphor, he provides a lens through which Jesus is properly

interpreted. Every detail of his account, I think, is worthy of our attention. Take some

time maybe later this afternoon to sit down with this passage from the beginning of

Matthew's gospel and read through it in a meditative spirit. Matthew tells us that John

made his appearance as a preacher in the desert of Judea. I was in the Judea desert a

couple years ago filming for our Catholicism series. It was one of the most powerful

places that I've been on these trips around the world. Something about the beauty but also

the starkness of that desert. What is it about deserts in the Bible? Moses spends years

in the desert before taking up his work. Elijah sojourns in a deserted place at a crisis

point in his ministry. Of course, the Israelites have to pass through the desert 40 years on

the way to the promised land. Jesus himself spends 40 days and nights in the desert before

beginning his public work. At the beginning of the Christian movement, monks sequester

themselves in caves and primitive shelters in the desert. What is it about deserts? Well,

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