Word on Fire is brought to you by Catholic cemeteries, serving the Chicago area since 1837, and FSP dedicated to food service excellence.

This is Cardinal Francis George, and I invite you to join me for the next few minutes to reflect with Father Robert Barron on the Word of God, which is the Word on Fire.

Father Barron will challenge 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 Archdiocese of Chicago through the generosity of Sacred Heart Parishing Winnicka now presents the Word on Fire.

Peace be with you.

Friends, we have a special privilege this week because the feast of Saint Peter and Paul lands on a Sunday.

So we have a chance to reflect on these two great pillars of the early church, two of the greatest saints in all of Christian history.

Maybe the first thing we notice about Peter and Paul is how flawed and imperfect they were.

One of the marks of biblical revelation is that the Bible never glamorizes. It never lionizes its heroes.

Think, for example, in the Old Testament, one of the greatest heroes is King David, and indeed he is a hero chosen by God, did great things.

But David was also an adulterer and a murderer. The Bible doesn't gussy up its heroes. Turn them into legends.

Rather, their flaws are usually pretty clearly on display. We see it, of course, in the case of these two great heroes, Peter and Paul.

What do we know about Peter? Well, frankly, not all that much, but we can piece together a few facts.

Peter was a Galilean fisherman of the first part of the first century.

Notice, please, he wasn't poor. That's a bit of a misperception that Jesus' disciples were abjectly poor. That's really not right.

Peter was a fisherman who had his own boat. Therefore, he had a certain amount of prosperity.

We know, too, from archaeological records, that Galilean fishermen did business all through Palestine, selling their fish as far away as Jerusalem,

and even to ports in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. They would preserve the fish somehow and they'd send them around.

So here's someone who was not abjectly poor, not rich by any stretch, but we might say small businessman owning and operating his own business.

Peter was not well-educated. He spoke, obviously, his native, Aramaic, Jesus' language.

But he probably knew a little bit of Greek. You need some Greek to do business in that part of the world.

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