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'm going to admit something to you. I'm a little bit

reluctant to talk about the topping of our gospel for today because it's this

famously controversial matter of how many will be saved. So someone asks Jesus

that question and he responds, you know, strived to enter by the narrow gate. Now

I say I'm reluctant to address it because I've talked a lot and written a lot

about this issue and boy, the people have strong feelings about it. If you doubt

me, go anywhere on the internet. Just put in, you know, Catholic Church, how many

will be saved? You're going to get a lot of really strong opinions. Everybody will

be saved. Nobody will be saved. Only a handful will be saved. Most people will be

saved and everything in between. And everyone's able to draw upon, you know,

saying some scripture to justify their point of view. There's a lot of energy

around this question. So I'm not going to rehearse for you, you know, what

everything I've said about it. You can go and look at sermons and writings of

mind. Let me just say a couple simple things, but then I want to get at something I

think a little new and a little fresh because that's, I believe, what the gospel

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