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 to be with you. Friends, I mentioned last week that we're in the gospel of Mark now in this liturgical cycle,

and Mark is such a, he's a literary master really.

As I mentioned last time, that something Hemiway-esque about him,

there's something very direct and uncomplicated. But in another sense, I mean, he does show a lot of literary sophistication and you see it,

especially in this famous story for today. It's a technique he uses a number of times. It's a kind of narrative

sandwiching. What I mean is he begins a story, then he interrupts it to insert a second story and then he finishes the first story.

It's a very clever technique for a number of reasons, but I think what's going on

is he's forcing us to read these two stories

together. He's compelling us to say, okay there's some connection between these two

narratives.

NT Wright, the great biblical scholar,

said that these two stories here kind of spark off each other.

As they come up against each other, they send off illumination upon each other.

Okay. And you know, here's the basic structuring.

We have the story of the daughter of Gyres.

Gyres, the synagogue official, official comes to Jesus Lord my daughter's

dying please come and so then Jesus sets out and while he's setting out now we put the

second story in and the story of the hemorrhaging woman, right, that reaches out

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