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 of us. Peace be with you. Friends, this weekend we celebrate the great

feast of Corpus Christi, the body and the blood of Christ. Here's the first and most important point

to get. This feast signals the distinctiveness of Christianity among the religions and philosophies

of the world. Look, Plateness, reverence, Plato, Aristotelians, reverence, Aristotle, Muslims,

reverence, Muhammad, Jews, reverence, Moses, Buddhist, reverence, the Buddha, even members of the

Abraham Lincoln Society, reverence, Lincoln. But none of these ad-debs would ever speak of eating the

body and drinking the blood of the one they revere. That makes sense. And it's not to say anything

negative about any of these good people, but none of them would speak of eating the body and drinking

the blood of the one they revere. All are inspiring figures, great teachers, wonderful exemplars from

the past. But none of them is a living person whom their followers endeavor to ingest. So I

wanted to see how kind of strange this feast is. Now listen to St. Paul. And I'm reading for today,

is he explains this distinctiveness to the little Christian community he had founded in Corinth.

Paul says, the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?

The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? The word that Paul uses here

is coinonia in his Greek communion. Consider how closely this resonates with the language of

St. John's Gospel when Jesus says, I am the vine. You are the branches.

Remain in me. Now, to be sure, John's Jesus speaks of being shepherd and teacher.

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