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. Well, friends, the church is teasing

us a bit this weekend, offering some glimpses of the Holy Spirit in advance of the great

feast of the Spirit, which is Pentecost, coming up in two weeks. It is all the churches

is sort of getting excited about the arrival of the Spirit and it wants to share with us in

advance some insight, some glimpses of the work of the Holy Spirit. So each of our readings for

this six Sunday of Easter offers a kind of tantalizing peak at the being and action of the

third person of the Blessed Trinity. In the first reading, which is taken from the acts of the

Apostles, we hear about the mission of Philip the Apostle to the town of Samaria. So remember

after the persecution around the death of St. Stephen, a lot of the first Christians fled

from Jerusalem out into the country. There's a sermon for another day, but of course, that's

how God can use the negative for positive ends. The persecution of the church led to these

first great evangelical missions. So Philip goes to Samaria and his proclamation of the gospel

was accompanied were told by some pretty spectacular things, unclean spirits coming out of possessed

people, many paralyzed and crippled people being cured, et cetera. You know what's interesting,

friends, is you'll see this a lot in the history of a church. When missionaries go into places

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