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 and 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,

there's something really quite awful about our readings for this weekend and we

should just come to grips with it. Think about biblical religion is it's not just

you know, nicey, nicey. Biblical religion is not just you know feel good all the

time. Biblical authors, this is Old Testament and new, speak with an edge

frequently and with a clearly critical intent very often. Anyway that's one of

my pet peeves about religion today as we tend just to shy away from this side

of the Bible. You know, we'll emphasize all the kind of nice uplifting you know

positive elements but when the Bible gets kind of dark and sharp edge we back

away or we explain it away. Don't do that. We have to hang in there with it and

let the Bible maybe cut us a little bit you know. So we're looking at our first

reading at the prophet Isaiah and here's the background I think Israel indeed

is the chosen people of God. So let's clear in the whole Bible his love has

been lavished upon Israel. He's given them the law and the prophets and the

covenants and liberation from slavery. He set them up as a standard for all the

nations of the world. That's what it means to be the chosen people of God. But see

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