This is Cardinal Francis George. I invite you to join me for the next two 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. President of Great Privilege we have now in the middle of Lent to hear

one of the greatest stories ever told. I'm talking about what's generally regarded to

be Jesus' greatest parable, the parable of the prodigal son or maybe better the parable

of the father and his two sons. There's so much spiritual wealth in the story and it's

beguiled Christian thinkers and artists up and down the centuries. I'll just say a few

simple things as we go through this great story. Can I urge everybody listening to me?

At some point today, take out your New Testament, turn to Luke chapter 15, you'll find this

great story there and it's a wonderful point of meditation. Here's how we begin. A man

had two sons. The younger son said to his father, father, give me the share of your

estate that should come to me. As many pointed out, this is shockingly insulting language,

especially for that time and place because what the younger son was saying basically

was, why don't you hurry up and die? Because you'd wait for your father to die before you

got his inheritance. He's saying, basically, I can't wait for that. Just hurry up and give

me my share of inheritance. So very deeply insulting to the father. Notice too, in this

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