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. Friends, whenever I have the opportunity

to preach on the book of the prophet Jonah, I take it. For Jonah is one of the shortest

books in the Bible and one of the most fascinating and spiritually rewarding. You can easily

read through it in one sitting and I recommend you do so. Maybe you know roughly the story

of Jonah or you've heard excerpts from it. Sit down sometime today or this week and read

through it. You can do it in about, I don't know, 15-20 minutes. It's always surprising,

funny, puzzling, colorful, as I say, spiritually rewarding. We have a brief passage today. It's

our first reading for Mass, which conflates some elements from different parts of the book

of Jonah. So it might be good to look again at the whole story. So we understand what's going

on here. We hear that the Word of the Lord came to Jonah, commanding him to preach repentance

to the city of Nineveh. Now several principles aren't work here already. Biblical heroes are

always summoned. They're always in the passive voice. Paul refers to himself as the one

who's called Biblical heroes don't make up their own minds. They don't act according

to their own designs. They don't say don't tread on me. It's my project. That's just not a

Biblical perspective. Rather, they're always called by a higher will. Remember Paul says in Ephesians,

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