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, we have today this wonderful feast of the Holy Family.

We have a lot of people telling us what makes a family, you know,

integrated, psychologically healthy, but what's interesting about today is we look into the mystery

of what makes a family holy.

And the church gives us now our first reading that wonderful, wonderful story about Hannah.

You'll find it in the first book of Samuel. I might urge people who've been away from the

Bible for a while. Take out First Samuel, read just the first, you know, couple of chapters.

You'll find this really beautiful story. But it's more than just a beautiful story. It tells us a very

deep truth about what makes a beautiful story. It tells us a very deep truth

about what makes a family holy. So we're told of a man named Elkanah and his two wives,

Panina and Hannah. Now, the former had given him lots of children, and the latter, Hannah, remained

childless. So on a regular basis, the family went up to worship the Lord at the temple in Shiloh.

Now, this is way before we have the Jerusalem Temple that was built by David's son, Solomon.

But at the time, the Ark of the Covenant was kept in the Temple of Shiloh.

So up they went, and Hannah, a regular basis would beg the Lord,

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