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 be with you, friends, I know I say this a lot, but the readings today take us to very holy ground for this 31st Sunday of the year.

Reading 1 is taken from the 6th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy.

I'm going to encourage you get out your

Bibles and at some point read this sixth chapter because it contains what's

called in Hebrew the shamah. It's this prayer that is fundamental to Jewish theology and spirituality.

And here's what makes it doubly sacred today is the gospel.

It's a story of the person asking Jesus, and what's the... is the cites the shamah. So the son of God, the Torah made flesh, is now affirming what we hear in

Deuteronomy 6. It's like we can't get any more sacred or any clearer indication of how we should govern our lives.

So what's the shamah?

Well you look in

Deuteronomy six and I'm going to read just the first

famous line

shamah yizhrael adonai elohenu adonai a han uh... that's Hebrew with a Chicago accent by the way. What that means is here,

Shimah listen, O Israel, the Lord, our God, is Lord alone.

And then what follows,

therefore you shall love the Lord's of God

with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. As I say, it's the, it's

the cornerstone of Jewish theology, of Jewish religion and spirituality.

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