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 first reading and third reading today are wonderful because I have to do with

I think a basic problem in the church which is the church at war with itself.

You know mind you the devil is the scatterer. He's the divider. And one of his favorite tricks is to take the church, which is meant to be an instrument of the gospel in the world and to turn us against one another.

You know, divide and conquer, that's a really good principle if you want to undermine your

enemy.

Remember in the old Tolkien stories the orcs the orcs are ferocious you know but they

always undermine themselves because they turn against one another they end up killing each

other well see if you can make your enemy do that

that's great. And so the enemy of the church I think loves to play this game of

dividing us against each other.

A very good example of this in the Old Testament is the Saul David conflict.

Remember?

Saul and David, David Saul's protégé, they're on the same team. They're on the same team.

They're fighting the same enemy.

But then, then that voice is heard, you know,

hey, the women sing, Saul slew his thousands, but David is tens of thousands. And Saul is filled

with murderous jealousy and this goes after David. And as you're reading that story, you're thinking,

no, no, no, no, no, you guys have a common enemy here.

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