Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Brandon Vaat, the host and the senior publishing

director at Word on Fire. Today we share with you the 2023 commencement address that Bishop

Barron was honored to give at Hillsdale College back in May of this year. The address was titled

the most important decision in life, and he examined a question, not the question of

what we are to do in life, important as that is, but rather the question of what kind of person

we ought to be? Do we hunger and thirst for righteousness? Or do we seek our own advantage in life?

That's the question. And in a way, Bishop Barron says, there is no question in the moral and

spiritual order more fundamental than that. So sit back and enjoy this talk from Bishop Barron

titled the most important decision in life. Enjoy.

Well, thank you, President Arndt for that. That was lovely and Chairman Sejek. Thank you.

Thanks everyone for inviting me. The trustees and the faculty, the administrators here.

It's a thrill to be here at Hillsdale College, which I've heard about for a long time.

It's my first visit here. Came last night, had a wonderful dinner, tour the campus, and then

the culmination of the evening was this remarkable concert in the chapel, which ended with

Mueller's first symphony, played by our student orchestra here, and it was just really marvelous.

So it's been a terrific visit to Hillsdale. I know it might be on the minds of some. I heard people

actually talking and writing about this before I came here, is why would this historically even

famously Protestant college invite a Catholic bishop of all people to give the commencement address?

Well, I apologize for your ecumenical openness, but let me say this.

I talked to a course in the Reformation for many years when I was a theology professor.

Read the works of Luther and Calvin, the other reformers with great interest, and I do think the

questions they raised, these great 16th century questions, that still divide the churches are

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