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, all during this Easter season we're reading from the

Book of Revelation, the marvelous and final Book of the Bible. So I'm just going to

be following these readings all during the Easter season. Here's a go when I was a

doctoral student in Paris. I was in a seminar conducted by Father Michel

Corban, great medieval theology scholar, man that eventually became my

doctoral dissertation director. And somehow in that seminar the issue of

imperialism came up, you know the church being imperialistic and

domineering throughout the ages. And Corban said something, I remember his his

eyes kind of widened and he had a big smile and he said, the only true imperialism

is the imperialism of the martyrs. And everything struck me, it stayed my mind

because he was saying, yeah in a way the Christian church is imperialistic because

we're meant to declare Jesus as Lord of all the nations. But we're not

imperialistic in that worldly way imposing ourselves through domination and

through military power or cultural coercion. No, the imperialism that we

exercise is that of the martyrs. And Corban's line came to my mind as I

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