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, I don't like Puritanism in any of its forms. What I

mean here is you know the kind of fussy dualistic system of religious thought

that says you know we should just fly away from the goods of this world. I've

always been with Hillair Bellach who famously said wherever the Catholic son

does shine there's music and laughter and good red wine. You know we're meant to

enjoy the world that God has made. Genesis tells us that the world is good the

ensemble of what God has made is very good and we're meant to enjoy it. So I

am against Puritanism in all of its forms. At the same time no system such as

Puritanism would have lasted as long as it has and it's present in the ancient

world and all up and down the centuries till today unless it were saying something

true. Now what's the something that's true in it? And here we're on I think a

major fault line of all of religion and all of spiritual experience. We live in

this world of good things but nothing in this world finally satisfies the

deepest longing of our heart. We're in the world immersed in it all these good

pleasurable things but yet the hunger of our heart is for something that transcends

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