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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.

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Peace be with you, friends. This fourth Sunday of Lent gives us marvelous readings. The Gospel is the, you know, magnificent parable of the prodigal son. And I'll get to it. But what I want to do today is look really at all three readings. The church always gives us these very rich readings during Lent. And the correspondences between the Old Testament, the Epistle of Paul and the Gospel, I think, are quite striking today. The first reading is one. It's a little sneaky. I think we tend to overlook it and think, well, okay, why was that little peculiar passage put in here? It's from the book of Joshua. When you have a chance, get out your Bibles, read through Joshua. It's a very adventurous book. And you know the story that Joshua was the successor of Moses. Upon Moses death, he takes over the leadership of Israel and he's the one who leads them finally into the promised land. So Moses doesn't have that privilege. He brought them right to the brink. But then it's Joshua who fights the great battle and leads them into the promised land. Well, his name, we call him Joshua, but we call him that really to distinguish him from Jesus. Because it's the same name, right, Yeshua. It's the same name in Hebrew of this Old Testament figure and the Lord. Well, the church fathers didn't overlook that. So they saw the Old Testament, Yeshua, Joshua, as very much a type of Christ in anticipation of Christ. Now, why? Well, Jesus of Nazareth is the one who fights the definitive battle against sin and death and who leads his people through his dying and rising into the definitive promised land of heaven. So the Old Testament, Joshua, who fights a physical military battle and leads the people into a physical space, is a type. He's an anticipation of Jesus. Okay, so with that in mind, listen what we hear. We hear that while the Israelites were encamped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, so just about to enter the promised land, they celebrated the Passover in the Evening of the 14th of the month on the day after Passover, they enter into the Promised land and eat of the produce of the land. And then it says to us, the manna from that moment on ceased. Okay, Remember the story of the manna. The Israelites are making their way for 40 years through the desert where there's no crops, there's nothing they can eat. They beg the Lord and the Lord sends this strange substance. And manu in Hebrew has a sense of, what is that? That's why they call it manna, this thin wafer like food that sustained them. Though there was nothing savory about the manna, there was nothing, you know, it wasn't like a great banquet. It was just enough to keep them going. And at last. Listen, it lasts right till they get to the edge of the promised land. And once they enter, the manna stops and they eat the fruit of the earth of the promised land. Okay, you're a church father. You know, there's a typological relationship between Old Testament Yeshua and New Testament Yeshua. Jesus leads the people into the promised land of heaven and see what happens. The manna which had been sustaining us for a long time will give way to the true food of heaven. What are we talking about? The Eucharist? Notice, please, the Passover reference. Joshua, Old Testament celebrates Passover, and then the next day enters the promised land. What does New Testament Yeshua do? Well, a Passover meal with his disciples. And he takes the Passover bread and says, this is my body, the Passover cup. This is the chalice of my blood. He gives them the gift of the Eucharist, and then he, through his dying and rising, passes over into the realm of heaven to which he is now leading us. What do we have, everybody, on the long trek through the desert on the way to heaven, we have a thin, wafer like meal that sustains us. Now watch. Watch. Is the Eucharist that we consume savory food? Is it like the food we eat at a great banquet? No. No. There's something utterly humble and simple about it. The real presence of Jesus. Yes, indeed. But appearing humbly under these sacramental signs of bread and wine, food for the journey. Mm. Mm. What keeps us going on the way through the desert of this world to the promised land of heaven? What will happen when we pass from this world into the promised land of heaven? What will give way? Everybody is the Eucharist, because now we will see him face to face. Now we will feast on the full reality of his body and blood, not under humble sacramental signs, but in themselves, on their own terms. Now, please don't think For a second, I'm denigrating the Eucharist. Not at all. Eucharist is the real, true and substantial presence of Jesus. But in this humble form, like the manna in the desert, it will cease. Thomas Aquinas has said it will cease because in heaven we will see him as he is, and we will eat, as it were, of the produce of the promised land. All right, that's a eucharistic reading of this text from Joshua. Can I suggest to you, as it anticipates the heavenly banquet, it's very connected to our second reading, from the second letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians. After you finish Joshua, go to the New Testament, these marvelous letters of Paul. But the two he wrote to the Corinthians are especially rich. Read through that second letter to the Corinthians. But listen now what he says in this passage, because I think. I think one of the really decisive passages in the entire New Testament, he says, whoever is in Christ is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come. What makes Christianity distinctive when you see it in relation to the other religions? Well, look at all the other religions. They have to do with some moral or intellectual transformation. So a good Buddhist, the Buddha himself, would say, there's this Eightfold path that I've discovered that has helped me to live my spiritual life in a richer way, and I'd like you to follow it. So change your behavior and your mind to fit the Eightfold path. Or a good Muslim would say, well, this revelation was given to Muhammad and it's teaching us to submit to the will of Allah. And so that's what I want you to do. I want you to change your mind and your behavior to submit to Allah. Confucian, the same thing. There's a moral teaching of Confucius, and I want you to adapt to it. A Jew would say, I want you to follow the teachings of the Torah. Okay, all good, Fine, as far as they go. Then there's Christianity. Listen, everybody. Which is qualitatively different. It's qualitatively different. Why? Because Christianity is not just about changing your ideas or changing your moral behavior. Christianity is about becoming a new creation. Christ didn't come just to make us nicer people. He didn't come that we might be more morally upright. Aristotle can teach us how to be morally upright. Jesus came to divinize us, to make us divine, to make us sharers in his own nature. I mean, nothing is as trivial if you want as moral reform. I mean, moral Reform is fine, but that's not what Christianity is about. Again, whoever is in Christ is a new creation. Here's a line I've often cited when people say, tell me, what is Christianity all about? And I'll cite this line from 2 Corinthians. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. I suggested that, in a way, all of our doctrine is contained in that line, all of our creed, everything. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not just making it morally better, he was drawing it into his own life, divinizing it. That's why the Church Fathers said over and over and over again, all of them, east and west, the Church Fathers Deus fit Homo with Homo fier et Deus. God became man, that man might become God. Now, say what you want about that. I mean, quarrel with it, disagree with it, but it's not like the other religions. That's not what the other religions say. It's something strange and wonderful and qualitatively different. Okay, what's the link between reading one from Joshua and this reading from 2 Corinthians? What is the Eucharist? Everybody, what is the Eucharist? Oh, it's a nice symbol that makes me think about Jesus. So I become a morally better person. No, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, please, God, you become a morally better person. That's all fine, but the Eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus. I'm talking the body and blood of Jesus. And we eat his body and drink his blood under these sacramental signs. Listen. That we might become conformed to him. Moral implications from that. Sure, of course. But what matters is metaphysics, not morals, if I can put it that way. What matters most is ontology, not a change of behavior. I become a different person. I'm changed by eating the body and drinking the blood of Jesus. Okay, What I wanted to do, everyone, was take you through those two readings just to shed some maybe fresh light on the very familiar story of the prodigal son. And we know the contours of it very well. This younger son, who's frankly a bit of a jerk, right? He says, hey, Father, give me my share of the inheritance coming to me right now. Well, I mean, you could insult your father more thoroughly than that. I'm not even going to wait till you die, till I get my inheritance. So the Father gives it to him, and of course he squanders it on riotous living. He's bad guy all the way. And then he hits bottom. I'm Feeding the pigs. For a Jew, pigs were unclean. And you're feeding the pigs. You can't get any lower. That's the point. All right, all right. I know I'm a terrible sinner. And so I'm going to go back to my father. I'm going to crawl back, hoping against hope that he'll take me back. And he gives his speech. You know, father, I've sinned against God and against you. And the Father right away just cuts him off, embraces him, gives him the ring on his finger, kills the fatted calf, puts his own cloak on him and brings him in to a banquet. Who is this figure, this father? It's the God. Listen. Who wants to divinize us, who wants to share his life with us. We're all like the prodigal son, you know, to varying degrees. But we're all like him, you know? We're all making demands of God all the time. We want what we want when we want it. We squander what he gives us. We make a wreck of our lives. We all do. We. We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, right? Nevertheless. Nevertheless, if we but signal an openness to forgiveness, he brings us in clothed in his own nature. You see what the cloak means? Look at Rembrandt's famous painting of the prodigal son. And the son is in the same cloak as the father. The ring. The Father's ring. Clothed in his nature, he brings them into the great banquet. Now, Joshua, right? The manna ends, and they enter the promised land. They eat the fruit of the promised land. Second Corinthians. I'm not just here to make you morally better. I'm here to divinize you. And it happens through the Eucharist, everybody. That's the great banquet. That's the great banquet to which God, in his gracious love, invites even us, the worst of sinners. And God bless you.