This is Cardinal Francis George. I invite you to join me for the next few minutes to reflect

with Father Robert Barron on the Word of God, which is the Word on Fire. Word on Fire Catholic

Ministries is a non-profit ministry at the forefront of Catholic evangelization, using

new media to spread the faith and every continent. Father Barron challenges us to open our hearts

to the Word on Fire, which is God's Word of Love for each of us. If our hearts are open,

the Lord can change and transform us so that we might speak with love about the one who

is love. The global benefactors of Word on Fire with the support of the Archdiocese of

Chicago now present Word on Fire. Peace be with you. Friends, we come today to the end of

that extraordinary eucharistic discourse, which has been our focus for the last several

weeks. Jesus speaking in the cappernum synagogue, it's the most remarkable reflection of the

eucharist anywhere in the Bible. Well, in the section just previous to our Gospel for today,

so we've been reading it, you know, bit by bit the last several weeks. In the previous section,

Jesus had clearly and unnervingly laid out what we Catholics call the doctrine of the real

presence. Now, when his audience bought it as words, Jesus said, listen, unless you eat the

flesh of the son of man, and I specified that the word of the Greek there is not eat the way

human beings eat, but more like naugh. The word is trogane, which indicates the way animals eat,

unless you naugh on the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

And then he specified, just to rub it in, my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink.

They wanted in short symbolism and metaphor, and he gave them in your face realism. That's where

the passage ended from last week. And it sets up our reading for today. Listen now as this reading

begins, many of Jesus' disciples who were listening said, this saying is hard. Who can accept it?

Now, the Lord knew their murmuring, which is why He said, does this shock you? Strong language,

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