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, we enter once more into the very holy season of

Lent, a time of preparation, a desert time, a time of prayer, fasting and

omnisgiving. But I want to stress today a time to return to the basics. If you're

a practitioner of a sport and you're even quite good at it, but very often

the beginning of the season, you go back to the basics. Your football player

you go back to three point stands and you go back to the fundamentals of

blocking and tackling, et cetera. Basketball player, the fundamentals of passing

and shooting and defense. Your golfer, some I think it's toughest and golf, is

you have to go back to the fundamentals of the swing, even if you're quite

accomplished. Well, in the spiritual order, it's the same thing, isn't it? Even

those of us who've been at least trying to live the spiritual life for a long time,

we have to return again and again to the fundamentals. And the Lent is a time

for that. And especially the readings out that we get during these weeks of

Lent are an attempt to introduce us once again to these basic moves of the

Christian life. And so how wonderful the church gives us for this first Sunday

...