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, here's a goal when I was a doctoral student in

Paris. I was attending a seminar by the man who would eventually become my

thesis director, a great Jesuit priest called Michel Corbain. He's one of the

great scholars of Saint Anselm in France, also Saint Thomas Aquinas. Well,

somehow the issue of imperialism came up in our seminar conversation.

Probably a critique of imperialistic tendencies within Christianity. I don't

really remember what got the conversation going, but I do remember that

Corbain's eyes kind of widened and with a smile, he said, the only legitimate

imperialism within the church is the imperialism of the martyrs. I'll tell you

that line has stayed with me all these years and it came to mind as I read the

passage from the book of Revelation and we're reading through it now all

during the Easter season that the church gives us for this fourth Sunday of

Easter. I've been arguing as you know the last couple weeks that the book of

Revelation is an unveiling of a new state of affairs, the new things that are

on offer in light of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It's no longer the

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