Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Brandon Vatis, Senior Publishing Director at Word on Fire.

Today we are sharing the audio of the homily that Bishop Aaron delivered during his installation mass at the coca-theodral of St. John the Evangelist and Rochester, Minnesota.

Bishop Aaron was installed as the new bishop of the diocese of Winona Rochester on July 29th. It happened to be the feast of saints Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.

And he gave a wonderful homily correlating those three saints to what Pope Benedict XVI identified as the three tasks of the church, namely worship, service of the poor, and evangelization.

So enjoy this homily titled the three tasks of the church.

Welcome morning everybody. I am delighted to be with you today and my heart is overwhelmed with joy and with gratitude to everybody today.

You know I think first of Pope Francis, my gratitude to him for gracing me with the appointment as Bishop of the Winona Rochester diocese.

Gratitude to Cardinal Harvey and Cardinal Supich, to Archbishop Gomez, Archbishop Hebdav, Archbishop Lestecchi, Archbishop Lucas.

Bishop Quinn, of course, by illustrious predecessor, now Bishop Emeritus, huh? It's just happened.

I'm grateful to all my brother, Bishop, and priests who have joined me today. And can I just highlight it, my name, but there are three bishops here who might taught in the seminary.

Do you want to know the definition of feeling old? That's it.

Grateful to, of course, to my family and friends, all those who have inspired me and shaped me and supported me over the years.

Gratitude to all those who've come from near and from far, from Chicago and Santa Barbara and Cardinal Harvey from Rome to be here today.

And I'm just delighted that this installation falls on the feast of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. Declared as such by Pope Francis just last year.

Remember it used to be just the feast of St. Martha. But how wonderful that all three of the siblings, dear friends of Jesus, are now included.

In the Gospels, we hear a good deal about the crowds of people who followed the Lord, about the 72 whom he sent, about those whom he healed and taught, indeed a lot about the 12.

But we don't hear much about his personal friends with the exception of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.

But see, everybody, the whole point of the Christian life is to become a friend of Jesus. At the last supper, the Lord told us apostles, I no longer call you servants, but friends.

How extraordinary that statement is. Of course, we relate to him as penitent to Lord as disciple, to master, but at the culmination of the spiritual life, we relate to him as a friend.

St. Bernard, Catherine of Siena II, expressed his sense symbolically as moving from the kiss of the feet. That's the penitent, the kiss of the hand, that's the disciple, to the kiss of the mouth, the kiss of friendship.

And since Jesus is divine, it means the ordinary goal of the Christian life is to become God's friend.

Well, seems to me the task that's been entrusted to me today by the Holy Father is to facilitate the process by which the people of this diocese become ever more deeply, friends of Jesus.

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