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 have some fascinating

texts today for our liturgy. Text from the book of the prophet Daniel and the eschatological

section of Mark's Gospel. These texts continue to confuse, confound, and beguile us thousands

of years after they were written. Many people today take them literally and look for the

imminent end of the time-space continuum. Think of that left behind series of books that

presented the biblical scenario of the end of the world in a very literalistic way as

if it was predicting events that would happen in the near future. Can I suggest this is not

the best way to approach these literarily and theologically very complex texts. Let's

look first at the book of Daniel. Our first reading is a passage from the book of Daniel.

In the Septuagint, which was the Greek translation of the Old Testament that many first century

Jews used, the book of Daniel was the very last book of the Bible. It's not in that position

now in most of our Bibles, but it was in those days. That tells you a great deal as though

the whole of biblical revelation was moving toward the book of Daniel. What do we hear?

In our passage for today, we hear of a great tribulation that will signal the end of the

old world and the arrival of a new one. An angel appears to Daniel and reveals to him the

...