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, today is the great feast of the presentation of the

Lord in the temple. There is a tendency, I'm afraid, to flatten out and

sentimentalize the meaning of the presentation of the Lord in the temple. What I

mean is this, we might just see it as a charming tale of a little child being

entrusted to the protection of God at the beginning of his life. There are many

parents that do this. In fact, when I was a rector of the seminary and I interview

the students, I was surprised not every time of course, but how many times a

kid would say, you know, my parents dedicated me to God when I was a child. They

took me into church and made an act of dedication to God. I was always very

moved by that when I said, well, yeah, it worked. You know, you dedicated this

child and then many years later he discerns a vocation. So that's beautiful. I

got nothing at all against that wonderful thing. But there's a lot more going on

here in our story about Jesus than that. And to understand it, the church gives us

the somewhat enigmatic reading from the book of the prophet Malachi. It's our

first reading for today. Malachi by the way is the last book of the Old Testament.

...