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, the readings for this 16th Sunday in ordinary time are very interesting the way they're kind of interwoven with each other.

I want to start with Jeremiah. I want to go to the gospel, but then I want to circle back to the second reading from Paul, which I think sheds the most light on the

thematics here. So Jeremiah we find a theme that you can also find in other

prophets, you can find it in the Psalms in fact all throughout the

Old Testament the idea of God's desire to shepherd his people listen here's Jeremiah channeling the words of God.

Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the Lord.

Therefore thus says the Lord, God of Israel against the Shepherds who shepherded my people.

You have scattered my sheep and driven them away.

So there's that standard trope, you want of the shepherd is the

one who should be guiding the people. Israel's had bad leaders, bad kings.

I mean David himself is a deeply flawed King Solomon, even the greatest of Israel's kings are flawed.

Then follow those two. You've got kind of a rogues gallery of corrupt and defective kings.

And so the prophets consistently the Psalms too complain about

the bad shepherding of Israel. So what does God say? I myself will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands to which I've driven them and bring

them back to their meadow.

God is going to come as the true shepherd of the house of Israel.

He's given these human shepherds a chance and they failed, so he himself will come. We find exactly the same thing in the prophet Ezekiel.

He envisions the flock of the Lord scattered upon the hillside and he decries the bad

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