This is Cardinal Francis George. I invite you to join me for the next two 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 on this great feast of the ascension

of the Lord. You know, Jesus was in his very person, the meeting of heaven and earth. God

and humanity came together in him. We say in him, two natures divine in human came together.

And therefore, his entire ministry was the outward expression of that inward identity. His

whole work was the work of bringing divinity and humanity together, calling a scattered

Israel to unity, inviting the poor to table fellowship, healing the sick and body and heart,

embodying the path of forgiveness and love. Everything he said and did was Jesus bringing

God's will and purpose to earth, bringing earth to God. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done

on earth as it is in heaven. That great line from Jesus' greatest prayer sums up what

I've been describing. Now, in his passion and death, Jesus effectively brought heaven

all the way down. He carried the divine life and light precisely into the very darkest

places of a human condition, into hatred, into cruelty, into violence, corruptions,

stupidity, suffering, into death itself, and he thereby transformed them. This is the

momentum and deepest purpose of what Christian faith terms, the incarnation, the inflection of God,

heaven and earth coming together. Even the darkest aspects of earth now becoming

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