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 people with you.

Friends, we come to this Sunday right before the commencement of the Holy Season of Lent.

And the Church is giving us something of great moment, I think, to reflect upon.

And it's the centrality of freedom and choice for the good at the center of the

spiritual life. Can I start here with a quote from Thomas Moore? It's featured in Man for All

Seasons, but I think it's based on something Moore actually wrote. He's talking to his daughter, Meg, and he says, God made the plants for their simplicity

and the animals for their innocence.

But man he made to serve him wittily in the tangle of his mind.

Moore is reflecting on variety in creation, that all the different aspects of creation give

glory to God in their own particular way.

But the human being he made with intellect and will, and precisely in the tangle of the mind

and in the sometimes conflictual quality of the will, he wants us to give him glory.

And what am I talking about here more precisely?

Well, look, there are a lot of things in creation that are just, they are that way.

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