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, as I mentioned last time I'm going to be focusing

much of this year on the Old Testament texts. Looking of course at the gospel,

but it's just my conviction that a lot of us Catholics aren't that good when it

comes to understanding the Old Testament and the Church every Sunday purposely

juxtaposes something from the Old Testament to help us understand the gospel.

So I'll be kind of focusing on that in the course of the year. Well, the

first reading from the prophet Isaiah for this weekend and our gospel are

tightly linked. For St. Matthew and articulating the meaning of Jesus,

sites as is his want. I mean Matthew was writing clearly for a Jewish

audience because he cites the Old Testament all the time, you know,

presuming his audience would understand. And what he cites for this week is a

reading from the eighth and ninth chapters of the book of Isaiah. The prophet

speaks there of conflict in the land of Zebulin and Nafta'ali and then of a

great light that shines in that area signaling the victory of God. So again,

attacks of the people of Matthew's time would have known the Jews of his time

...