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, our gospel for this weekend is that Marvel's

story from the gospel of Mark of Jesus healing a man with leprosy but to get

the visceral power of the story we have to follow the church's

recommendation and read this gospel in the light of our first reading which is

from the book of Leviticus. Now I would dare say the book of Leviticus is

probably the least read book of sacred scripture. Now that's too bad. It's

actually quite interesting and a lot of the church fathers were very interested

in the book of Leviticus. Look at origin the greatest biblical interpreter of

ancient times. Did a whole series of detailed homilies on Leviticus that might

be for another time but you know generally speaking Leviticus is the

holiness code of ancient Israel. I mean all these prescriptions moral, a

juridical, ceremonial, purity laws, etc. by which Israel defined itself as a

people. So in Leviticus you hear about how to make correct sacrifice you have

liturgical laws but also a lot of talk about clean and unclean animals the

kind of foods you can eat. All the things that define the peculiar behavior of

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