Good morning, this is Cardinal Francis George, and I invite you to join me for the next few minutes to reflect with Father Robert Baron on the Word of God, which is the Word on Fire.

Father Baron will challenge 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, who we might speak with love about the one who is love.

The Archdiocese of Chicago through the generosity of Sacred Heart Parish in Winetka now presents the Word on Fire.

Peace be with you. Friends today, I want to talk to you about the Church, and I want to use that remarkable image that St. Paul gives us.

An image I think that is very powerful, but that we don't often think about.

Let me read to you from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.

As a body is one, though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ.

Now you are Christ's body, individually, parts of it. Some people God has designated in the Church to be first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then mighty deeds, then gifts of healing, assistance, administration,

and the variety of tongues. Now there it is. We've heard it many times. Paul's image of the Church as the body of Christ.

What's it tell us? It tells us first what the Church is not. The Church of Jesus Christ is not a society.

Not a club. It's not a collectivity of like-minded people. So you have the Winston Churchill society, people who like Churchill, they admire him, they read his writings, and they come together to remember him. The Church is not like that.

It's not the Elk's Club. It's not the United States of America. It's not a society that is chosen to come together.

Rather, the Church of Jesus Christ is his body. Think of the language of the gospels here.

I am the vine, and you are the branches. That's how intimately we are joined to the life of Christ. Live in me as I live in the Father.

Look, a Buddhist follows the teaching of the Buddha. He admires him, he emulates him, and follows his teaching.

A Muslim will follow the revelation that came through Muhammad. But the Christian lives in Christ Jesus. He doesn't simply emulate him.

He doesn't simply follow his teaching. He does that. But more, he lives in Christ, sharing his very life.

Where does this become clearest when we come forward to receive the Eucharist?

We come forward to eat his body and drink his blood, that we might take his life into ours, that we might become Christ in an almost physical sense.

That's how intimately we are joined to him.

Let's stay with this image just a little bit.

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