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

first meeting in our gospel are about the Word of God today. I love how Pope Francis

recently has called us to a deeper appropriation and appreciation for the

Word of God and the dynamics now both from God's side as he speaks and then

our side as we receive are being explored in these readings. So the first

reading is from the 55th chapter of Isaiah. This marvelous section of Isaiah is so

rich as many ways but this reflection upon the nature of God's Word is

especially good. Listen now as Isaiah speaks. Thus says the Lord, just as from

the heavens the rain and snow come down and do not return there till they've

watered the earth making it fertile and fruitful, giving seed to the one who

sowed. So shall my Word be that comes forth from my mouth. Now what's being

described here? Here's the simple way to put it. God's Word is not descriptive.

God's Word is creative. Some of the 20th century language philosophers talk

about what they call the performative quality of some of our language. So a lot of

our language is descriptive. We're just describing what we see. We walk into a

room and we see a place. We go, oh here's what was going on. Let me describe it to

...