# Whats Next for the Word on Fire Institute - Bishop Barron's Daily Sermon

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 6 Jul 2026, 26 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72733577/whats_next_for_the_word_on_fire_institute.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: I think a lot of Vatican Two remains unrealized. That's
[0:03] Speaker 1: why people say, let's have Vatican three. I forget it.
[0:06] Speaker 1: Vatican two we barely realized it. And one of those
[0:09] Speaker 1: unrealized features is the call of every single baptized person
[0:14] Speaker 1: to be priest, prophet and king. Wellit means evangelizer. When
[0:18] Speaker 1: you go forth from Mass, you're not meant just to
[0:21] Speaker 1: go home and you know, have breakfast and watch the
[0:23] Speaker 1: football game. You're now called for the rest of the
[0:26] Speaker 1: week to bring Christ to the world, to evangelize.
[0:38] Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Brandon Vat,
[0:41] Speaker 2: the host and the senior publishing director. Five years ago
[0:45] Speaker 2: we started what has since become the largest online community
[0:49] Speaker 2: of Catholic evangelists in the world, the Word on Fire Institute.
[0:53] Speaker 2: But where did this come from? What's the purpose of
[0:55] Speaker 2: the institute and intriguingly, where is it going next? That's
[0:59] Speaker 2: what we'll be talking with with Bishop Robert Baron, the
[1:02] Speaker 2: founder of the Word on Fire Institute, who joins us
[1:05] Speaker 2: from his diocese of Wenona, Rochester.
[1:07] Speaker 1: Bishop, good to see you, hey, Brandon. How you doing
[1:10] Speaker 1: down there in Sony, Orlando. I bet it's Sonny and
[1:13] Speaker 1: nice doing well always, Sonny and nice. Good.
[1:16] Speaker 2: You have been traveling a lot, per usual, You've given talks,
[1:21] Speaker 2: You've been to events. But I want to update people
[1:24] Speaker 2: on a couple of recent trips you took. One was
[1:26] Speaker 2: for your USCCB meeting, So let me start with that.
[1:31] Speaker 2: How did that go? What was that like?
[1:33] Speaker 1: It's good. It's the meeting of the Administrative Committee. So
[1:36] Speaker 1: I'm a chair of the of a committee, namely on
[1:38] Speaker 1: Youth Marriage, Family Life, and all the chairs of the
[1:42] Speaker 1: committee are ex officio members of the Administrative Committee. So
[1:46] Speaker 1: what we do is we meet in September to determine
[1:49] Speaker 1: what's going to be on the agenda for November. I
[1:52] Speaker 1: know it sounds a little bit dull because it is,
[1:54] Speaker 1: you know, it's more of a bureaucratic meeting, but it's
[1:57] Speaker 1: a good chance to get together with some of the
[1:59] Speaker 1: key people in the Bishop's Conference, so I always kind
[2:02] Speaker 1: of enjoy it. And I spent a little time with
[2:04] Speaker 1: Archbishop Broviio, who's the president of our conference, and he
[2:07] Speaker 1: and I will be going over to the Senate together.
[2:09] Speaker 1: So there was a meeting of some of the Syinate
[2:12] Speaker 1: delegates too while I was there.
[2:14] Speaker 2: I know I said you've been traveling a lot. And
[2:16] Speaker 2: I think a lot of online readers and followers of
[2:19] Speaker 2: World on Fire Sea all of your mini talks and
[2:21] Speaker 2: events and think, wow, he must be on the road
[2:23] Speaker 2: all the time. But in reality, you spend the majority
[2:26] Speaker 2: of your time in the Diocese of Winona Rochester. Tell
[2:29] Speaker 2: us what's going on in the diocese. What's some exciting
[2:31] Speaker 2: stuff happening there.
[2:33] Speaker 1: Well, a very exciting thing is our pastoral center. So
[2:36] Speaker 1: we're moving the pastoral headquarters from Winona to Rochester. And
[2:40] Speaker 1: that's been planned for a long time before I even
[2:42] Speaker 1: got here, but I ratified that decision, and through the
[2:45] Speaker 1: generosity of a wonderful donor, we had the land and
[2:47] Speaker 1: the funds for this new building. And I got into
[2:50] Speaker 1: it last Friday. We had a meeting over there and
[2:53] Speaker 1: I was able to get up to the second floor
[2:55] Speaker 1: of the building. So the shell of it is all
[2:57] Speaker 1: in place, and you can really sense what will be like.
[3:00] Speaker 1: There's a beautiful chapel right in the middle of it
[3:02] Speaker 1: with a rose window looking out onto the kind of
[3:05] Speaker 1: busy street behind it. So it'll be a wonderful evangelical
[3:09] Speaker 1: tool and it'll be the headquarters for the diocese so
[3:12] Speaker 1: very excited about that. Also coming up is our Lake
[3:16] Speaker 1: Okapogie Days. So Lake Okuboji is a resort in northern Iowa,
[3:22] Speaker 1: and it's got this beautiful lake, a bit like Lake
[3:24] Speaker 1: Geneva in Wisconsin, and a lot of Midwesterners go there
[3:28] Speaker 1: for getaways. So the priests of this diocese have been
[3:32] Speaker 1: meeting there for many, many years in late September for
[3:35] Speaker 1: three days of prayer and discussion and so on. I'm
[3:39] Speaker 1: actually giving the talks this year. Last year i went there,
[3:42] Speaker 1: I just arrived in the diocese. I barely knew anybody,
[3:44] Speaker 1: but I came just to be with the priests. This year,
[3:47] Speaker 1: I'm saying the masses and giving the talks and all that,
[3:50] Speaker 1: and then I'm going to leave Lake Okoboji on Tuesday night,
[3:54] Speaker 1: spend one day back in my house, and then leave
[3:56] Speaker 1: for Rome. For Rome Aboji, I'm going to be there
[4:01] Speaker 1: for the Senate, you know, for five weeks. So it's
[4:04] Speaker 1: continues to be a busy time.
[4:06] Speaker 2: Today, I want to talk about the World on Fire
[4:08] Speaker 2: Institute five years ago on October first, twenty eighteen, which
[4:13] Speaker 2: is the Feast of Saint Terrez Lucille. We'll come back
[4:16] Speaker 2: to that in a moment we launched the Word on
[4:18] Speaker 2: Fire Institute, and since then we've welcomed over twenty three
[4:22] Speaker 2: thousand students who are all growing in their faith and
[4:25] Speaker 2: being formed as evangelists. Lots of exciting developments in recent weeks,
[4:30] Speaker 2: really we hired a new senior director of the Word
[4:33] Speaker 2: on Fire Institute, doctor Matthew Patrusik. We'll come back to
[4:36] Speaker 2: him in a moment. If you haven't been inside the
[4:39] Speaker 2: Institute in a while, maybe you've been on the fence
[4:41] Speaker 2: about joining. Now's a really great time. We just unveiled
[4:45] Speaker 2: a totally new platform that's more community based, so you
[4:49] Speaker 2: get to interact with the professors in real time and
[4:52] Speaker 2: other students. We have a really slick new mobile app
[4:55] Speaker 2: that makes it easier to go through the courses. You
[4:58] Speaker 2: get access to over forty the video courses taught by
[5:01] Speaker 2: some really top notch theologians, philosophers and evangelists. Many of
[5:05] Speaker 2: the courses are taught by Bishop Baron. There's courses on
[5:08] Speaker 2: Dante and the Church Fathers and many more. When you
[5:12] Speaker 2: sign up, you also get a free subscription to our
[5:15] Speaker 2: beautiful Evangelization and Culture Journal. This comes out four times
[5:19] Speaker 2: a year. You get a free copy of our centered book.
[5:22] Speaker 2: You get one hundred percent access to all of Word
[5:25] Speaker 2: on Fire's films and study programs, the Catholicism Series, Pivotal Players,
[5:29] Speaker 2: and much more. There's a book club group, a writing group,
[5:33] Speaker 2: a practical evangelization group, so much so much so learn
[5:37] Speaker 2: more and check it out and sign up at the
[5:38] Speaker 2: website Word Onfire dot org slash Institute. Let's go back
[5:43] Speaker 2: to the beginning. Bishop, take us back five years, six
[5:45] Speaker 2: years ago. Where did the idea for the Word on
[5:48] Speaker 2: Fire Institute come from? What prompted it? Why did you
[5:51] Speaker 2: think it was needed?
[5:53] Speaker 1: The answer to read to all those Father Steve Gruno. So,
[5:56] Speaker 1: Father Steve, who's the CEO We're on Fire, my former
[5:58] Speaker 1: student who's been working with me for years at Word
[6:01] Speaker 1: on Fire. I remember vividly. I was on the back
[6:05] Speaker 1: porch of my house in Santa Barbara and Father Steve
[6:07] Speaker 1: Kahn and said, you know, we should have as like
[6:10] Speaker 1: an institute that's associated Word on Fire and it has
[6:13] Speaker 1: fellows and has courses and trains people to be evangelist
[6:17] Speaker 1: in their everyday life. And I've meer sitting in my
[6:20] Speaker 1: chair and I looked at him and said, well, that
[6:21] Speaker 1: sounds like a lot. I don't know how we're ever
[6:23] Speaker 1: going to pull that off. But as usual, he was
[6:25] Speaker 1: the great visionary. Every institutional advancement we've had, really at
[6:29] Speaker 1: word on fire, was his idea, and this is no exception.
[6:32] Speaker 1: So I would give him, you know, the lion's share
[6:34] Speaker 1: of the credit for proposing it and thinking it through.
[6:38] Speaker 1: The ideas I say from the beginning was to form
[6:42] Speaker 1: lay people as evangelizers, as anyone that's listened to me
[6:47] Speaker 1: for a while knows. I think a lot of Vatican
[6:49] Speaker 1: two remains unrealized. That's why people say, let's have Vatican three.
[6:53] Speaker 1: I forget it. Vatican two we barely realized it. And
[6:57] Speaker 1: one of those unrealized features is the all of every
[7:00] Speaker 1: single baptized person to be priest, prophet and king. Wellit
[7:04] Speaker 1: means evangelizer. When you go forth from Mass, you're not
[7:08] Speaker 1: meant just to go home and have breakfast and watch
[7:11] Speaker 1: the football game. You're now called for the rest of
[7:14] Speaker 1: the week to bring Christ to the world, to evangelize. Well,
[7:18] Speaker 1: what people say, and I understand it, Well, that's great, Bishop,
[7:22] Speaker 1: But I mean, how do I do that. I don't
[7:24] Speaker 1: have any equipment to evangelize. Well, all right, that's where
[7:28] Speaker 1: the word on fire Institute comes in. It's meant to
[7:30] Speaker 1: equip lay people for their work as evangelizer. So part
[7:34] Speaker 1: of that's philosophy, part of its theology, part of its apologetics.
[7:39] Speaker 1: Part of it is understanding the culture. Part of it
[7:41] Speaker 1: is practical tips for evangelizing, and that's what the institute is.
[7:47] Speaker 1: It's designed to create a community of mostly lay people.
[7:50] Speaker 1: There are some priests in the Institute, but mostly lay
[7:53] Speaker 1: people who are now being equipped to do what Vatican
[7:57] Speaker 1: two is calling them to do, namely evangelize.
[8:02] Speaker 2: I think i've heard you in the past use a
[8:04] Speaker 2: military analogy that you want to build an army of evangelists,
[8:07] Speaker 2: and that this is sort of the training ground. This
[8:10] Speaker 2: is where you're sent off to school, the boot camp,
[8:12] Speaker 2: to learn all the skills that you need to be
[8:14] Speaker 2: an evangelist.
[8:16] Speaker 1: You know what's interesting, Brandon, is its occurred to me
[8:19] Speaker 1: in a way. We're doing it the reverse of many
[8:21] Speaker 1: of the great orders. So typically go back to the Franciscans,
[8:25] Speaker 1: the Dominicans and Benedictine's is they often began with what
[8:29] Speaker 1: they call a first order, which is a community of men,
[8:33] Speaker 1: right consecrated men. Then a second order, which should be
[8:36] Speaker 1: consecrated women around the charism of the founder, and then
[8:39] Speaker 1: typically a third order think of a third order Franciscan
[8:43] Speaker 1: and a third Order of Dominican. These would be lay
[8:46] Speaker 1: people who are living and working in the world, but
[8:48] Speaker 1: they are tied to the kerosm of the founder of
[8:51] Speaker 1: that order and they want to do some of that
[8:54] Speaker 1: work in their own proper sphere. Okay, So usually goes
[8:57] Speaker 1: from one to two to three in a way. We
[8:59] Speaker 1: started with three. We started with the lay component, and
[9:03] Speaker 1: I think that too is very Vatican too in its inspiration.
[9:06] Speaker 1: We started with the laity and we build up this,
[9:08] Speaker 1: you know, a pretty impressive army. What's the number, twenty
[9:11] Speaker 1: three thousand people. Now my dream is we're going to
[9:17] Speaker 1: move in the other direction too. I would like there
[9:20] Speaker 1: to be a clerical order of Word on Fire priests,
[9:24] Speaker 1: and heck, I would love Word on Fire women religious
[9:27] Speaker 1: as well. So let's get a second and first order.
[9:31] Speaker 1: But we've started a way with the third order, with
[9:33] Speaker 1: the lay community.
[9:37] Speaker 2: So we launched the Word on Fire Institute on October one,
[9:41] Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, which is the feast of Saint Herez of
[9:44] Speaker 2: the Sioux. Why her? What's her importance to the institute.
[9:48] Speaker 1: Well, she's been important to me personally into Word on
[9:51] Speaker 1: Fire from the beginning, and she's the you know, patroness
[9:55] Speaker 1: of the missions and the church I think loves the
[9:58] Speaker 1: kind of delicious poetry that here's This young woman died
[10:01] Speaker 1: at twenty four. She was a cloistered religious in this little,
[10:05] Speaker 1: tiny convent in northwestern France. She never ventured, you know,
[10:10] Speaker 1: she went on one trip to Rome, but otherwise never
[10:12] Speaker 1: ventured a few miles from her home. She was known
[10:15] Speaker 1: at her death by her family and a handful of
[10:17] Speaker 1: the sisters, you know. So ironically, though, this woman cultivated
[10:23] Speaker 1: within her heart during those years this profound desire to
[10:26] Speaker 1: be a missionary and to exemplified with all of the
[10:32] Speaker 1: great works of the church. But she saw herself as
[10:36] Speaker 1: praying for the mission and dedicated to love being a
[10:41] Speaker 1: sort of missionary in the heart of a church. So
[10:45] Speaker 1: Teres has been embraced by the church as a patroness
[10:47] Speaker 1: of the missions. And so we see our work as
[10:49] Speaker 1: very much missionary work. Indeed through the social media going
[10:54] Speaker 1: all over the world, that's true, but targeting especially I
[10:57] Speaker 1: would say, the disaffiliated, those who are kind of lost
[11:02] Speaker 1: in the sea of secularism.
[11:05] Speaker 2: The Institute was led for many years by its initial
[11:10] Speaker 2: senior director, Jared Zimmerer, who did a noble job leading
[11:12] Speaker 2: the institute, but we recently welcomed a new senior director,
[11:16] Speaker 2: doctor Matthew Patrusick. Tell us about Matthew and why you're
[11:19] Speaker 2: excited to have him at the Helm.
[11:22] Speaker 1: Yeah, Matthew's terrific. I first met him out in LA.
[11:25] Speaker 1: He was a friend of doctor Chris Kazor, who's also
[11:28] Speaker 1: involved with our institute. Chris was teaching out at lmu
[11:32] Speaker 1: Iola Marymount in LA, and we would get together for
[11:34] Speaker 1: dinner occasionally when I would come into Los Angeles. And
[11:38] Speaker 1: then one day he said, Hey, do you mind if
[11:39] Speaker 1: I bring this a friend of mine, Matthew Patruzik. I
[11:41] Speaker 1: think you'd really like him. I said, no, sure, bring
[11:43] Speaker 1: him along. So I met him over dinner one night
[11:46] Speaker 1: in LA. Discovered that he was a has a doctorate
[11:49] Speaker 1: from the University of Chicago, so I trained at the
[11:52] Speaker 1: very highest level academically, and then found him to be
[11:55] Speaker 1: also a very charming person and someone very dedicated to
[11:59] Speaker 1: the church and its mission who understood word on fire
[12:02] Speaker 1: from the inside.
[12:03] Speaker 2: Well.
[12:04] Speaker 1: Then, whenever I'd come down to LA to have dinner
[12:07] Speaker 1: with Chris Kzer or typically Matthew would join us. The
[12:11] Speaker 1: other one too, by the way, during those years who
[12:12] Speaker 1: would join us was Edward Faser, someone we both know,
[12:16] Speaker 1: one of the great ptomist philosophers operating today. So I
[12:20] Speaker 1: called them the Kaser Fhaser Dinners. But Matthew would often
[12:24] Speaker 1: join us for the Kaser Faser Dinners, so I came
[12:26] Speaker 1: to know him in those years. And then you know,
[12:29] Speaker 1: when the Institute was moving here to Rochester, Matthew moved
[12:34] Speaker 1: with his family to join us, and I was just
[12:37] Speaker 1: very grateful to him for that. And then we saw
[12:39] Speaker 1: the work he was doing, which was outstanding both in
[12:42] Speaker 1: terms of his writing but also his organizational skill which
[12:45] Speaker 1: is at a very high level. So we saw all
[12:48] Speaker 1: of that and thought, this is the man that can
[12:50] Speaker 1: lead the institute going forward.
[12:54] Speaker 2: You founded the Word on Fire Institute primarily to form
[12:58] Speaker 2: evangelists in the Word on Fire, your mode of evangelization.
[13:02] Speaker 2: So paint the picture for us in your view, what
[13:04] Speaker 2: does a fully formed evangelist look like?
[13:09] Speaker 1: Well, I would say, Brandon, a fully formed evangelist looks
[13:13] Speaker 1: like a Christian. You know that someone who's been christified
[13:16] Speaker 1: through baptism has been conformed to Christ. Priest, prophet and
[13:19] Speaker 1: king is by nature and vocation, a prophet, someone that
[13:25] Speaker 1: announces the Gospel, also someone who lives it by his
[13:30] Speaker 1: or her life, that you can see Christ shining through
[13:34] Speaker 1: that person by the way they live. So in a way,
[13:37] Speaker 1: there's nothing all that distinctive and unusual about being an evangelist.
[13:42] Speaker 1: It's the ordinary task of every baptized person. So I
[13:46] Speaker 1: would say he or she looks like someone who has
[13:49] Speaker 1: been baptized and realizes the full implication of that baptism
[13:54] Speaker 1: and allows Christ to live in him, to live in her,
[13:58] Speaker 1: and to speak him or her. That's that's what a
[14:02] Speaker 1: word on fire evangelist looks like. Now, to give it
[14:05] Speaker 1: a little bit of the word on fire accent, I
[14:06] Speaker 1: would say, with a particular focus on the disaffiliated, on
[14:13] Speaker 1: those who have left the church and gone into secularism,
[14:17] Speaker 1: maybe a particular focus on the use of the new
[14:20] Speaker 1: media to do this work. And that's something we've done
[14:23] Speaker 1: from the very beginning. And I'd say too, with a
[14:26] Speaker 1: kind of joyful confidence. We don't have so much of
[14:30] Speaker 1: a belligerent approach, you know, like kind of taking on
[14:33] Speaker 1: the culture. Sometimes I'll do that sometimes if I say, typically,
[14:37] Speaker 1: it's more of a positive semina verbi approach, right, the
[14:42] Speaker 1: seeds of the word, where do you find the seeds
[14:44] Speaker 1: of the word and the culture, So that might give
[14:46] Speaker 1: it a particular Word on Fire accent, But I think
[14:49] Speaker 1: to be an evangelist means to be a fully fledged
[14:52] Speaker 1: baptized Christian.
[14:54] Speaker 2: I mentioned that we just released this brand new platform
[14:57] Speaker 2: for the Word on Fire Institute, totally revam. It's got
[15:00] Speaker 2: community futures, seminars, a whole lot more, but it's still
[15:04] Speaker 2: primarily based around carefully crafted sequences of courses that are
[15:08] Speaker 2: taught by our professors through the institute. These courses guide
[15:13] Speaker 2: students down a particular path offormation. I thought we could
[15:16] Speaker 2: talk about a couple of them here. One of them
[15:19] Speaker 2: that I think is unique to Word on Fire is
[15:20] Speaker 2: we have a whole sequence on popular culture. We of
[15:25] Speaker 2: course have courses on theology, philosophy, apologetics, but also a
[15:29] Speaker 2: sequence that walks through topics such as literature, comedy, writing,
[15:35] Speaker 2: the science of happiness. Why is it important for evangelists
[15:39] Speaker 2: to be familiar with the popular culture beyond the church
[15:42] Speaker 2: and to learn to engage it.
[15:45] Speaker 1: That's where people live right. They live in the context
[15:47] Speaker 1: of that culture, both high and low. And I think
[15:50] Speaker 1: Word on Fire has I've tried to do that from
[15:52] Speaker 1: the beginning, is to address the high culture, you know,
[15:55] Speaker 1: through the books and ideas and university and all that,
[15:57] Speaker 1: but also the popular culture, because that's where people are,
[16:00] Speaker 1: that's where they live. That's why from the beginning I
[16:02] Speaker 1: was doing commentary on movies and music and so on.
[16:06] Speaker 1: So I just think you've got to be rangy as
[16:08] Speaker 1: an evangelist. You've gotta have a lot of tricks in
[16:09] Speaker 1: your bag. You have to be able to like a
[16:12] Speaker 1: good tennis player, you know, who can respond to the
[16:14] Speaker 1: ball as it comes beforehand, backhand, I got to race
[16:17] Speaker 1: to the net. I gotta go back and that each
[16:20] Speaker 1: shot is a little bit different and there's never just
[16:22] Speaker 1: one way to do it. And if people are living
[16:25] Speaker 1: in the world of popular culture, well then we ought
[16:27] Speaker 1: to move in that world too and understand it. What's
[16:30] Speaker 1: good about it, what's bad about it? What are the
[16:32] Speaker 1: seeds of the word available there? You know, it's tricky
[16:37] Speaker 1: work branded, but that's always been true. Think of Thomas
[16:40] Speaker 1: Aquinas engaging Aristotle. That's the high culture of his time. Well,
[16:44] Speaker 1: a lot of people were very critical of him for
[16:47] Speaker 1: doing that Newman engaging the British philosophical culture of his time.
[16:54] Speaker 1: A lot of people thought that was an enormous mistake.
[16:58] Speaker 1: So in a similar way today there are culture movements,
[17:00] Speaker 1: both high and low, and some people will say, well, look,
[17:04] Speaker 1: you know you're going to get tainted if you deal
[17:07] Speaker 1: with that culture. You can't watch a movie like that,
[17:09] Speaker 1: you can't read those books. Well, I don't think evangelists
[17:12] Speaker 1: can afford to be that fussy and puritanical. Jesus went
[17:17] Speaker 1: into the you know, taverns and restaurants of his time,
[17:22] Speaker 1: you know, and mixed and mingled with ordinary people in
[17:25] Speaker 1: their everyday lives. You know. He wasn't a guru on
[17:29] Speaker 1: a mountain side, but went into the world where people
[17:32] Speaker 1: were Well, that's the model I think for Christian evangelism.
[17:38] Speaker 2: We have lots of other cool sequences of courses inside
[17:40] Speaker 2: of the institute. There's one on prayer and spiritual formation
[17:44] Speaker 2: for evangelists. There's another on faith and science topics to
[17:47] Speaker 2: get you up to speed on those. The last one
[17:50] Speaker 2: I wanted to talk with you about is although it's
[17:52] Speaker 2: not an official course sequence, we have several courses inside
[17:56] Speaker 2: the institute on how to evangelize the nuns, those with
[17:59] Speaker 2: no religious affiliation. For example, doctor Stephen Boulevant teaches a
[18:03] Speaker 2: course on understanding the nuns and how to reach them. Yeah,
[18:07] Speaker 2: we have other we have other courses on how to
[18:09] Speaker 2: reach the indifferent, how to evangelize the open minded. Why
[18:13] Speaker 2: is it important for Catholics to understand this specific demographic
[18:17] Speaker 2: the nuns.
[18:19] Speaker 1: They're the most they're the growing demographic. There's the you know,
[18:22] Speaker 1: the most aggressively expanding religious group in the Western world
[18:26] Speaker 1: would be nuns. And for us to ignore that would
[18:29] Speaker 1: be would be fatal to our mission. You know, there's
[18:32] Speaker 1: all the different levels. There's ecumenical outreachs, you know, the
[18:35] Speaker 1: Protestant Catholic dialogue. There's there's the attempt to reach Catholics
[18:41] Speaker 1: who have just become kind of lapsed in their faith.
[18:43] Speaker 1: But I think this, this ever growing army of young
[18:47] Speaker 1: people who are disaffiliating from religion as such, that's the
[18:52] Speaker 1: need of our time. That's the needful thing right now
[18:55] Speaker 1: is to engage those folks. And and they are you know,
[18:58] Speaker 1: I use the cliche, but they're hungry for spiritual things.
[19:03] Speaker 1: I think there's a load of evidence that suggests they're
[19:08] Speaker 1: very interested in spiritual things even as they're uneasy with
[19:12] Speaker 1: classical and organized religion. So that's the call of our time.
[19:16] Speaker 1: And you know, compared to earlier periods, what was ignacious
[19:21] Speaker 1: responding to, what was dominic responding to, what was Francis
[19:25] Speaker 1: responding to? This is the needful thing in our time,
[19:28] Speaker 1: it seems to me. So that's where the church needs
[19:32] Speaker 1: to be.
[19:32] Speaker 2: Well. Finally, I mentioned we've got several exciting things going
[19:35] Speaker 2: on right now at the Institute, this new platform, new leadership,
[19:39] Speaker 2: new courses, groups and seminars. But help chart us your
[19:44] Speaker 2: vision for the next five, ten, fifteen years of the Institute.
[19:48] Speaker 2: Where do you see it going now in the future.
[19:51] Speaker 1: I gave some of it away earlier, I guess when
[19:53] Speaker 1: I said I want to go from the third order
[19:55] Speaker 1: to the second order to the first order. I'd like
[19:58] Speaker 1: to see this move in the direction of of a
[20:01] Speaker 1: religious order. Not that I want to turn the laity
[20:04] Speaker 1: into clerics, but what I mean is that the third order
[20:07] Speaker 1: might be where we start. But then I want to
[20:09] Speaker 1: see it expand to include men and women religious who
[20:14] Speaker 1: are hyper dedicated with their whole life, taking the classical
[20:17] Speaker 1: vows and all that to do this work of evangelizing. Secondly, Brandon,
[20:22] Speaker 1: I'm going to be a little bold here, but I
[20:24] Speaker 1: think I see it as becoming a university in time.
[20:28] Speaker 1: You know, things today start online. That's kind of a
[20:31] Speaker 1: mark of our time. And we have affiliations with universities,
[20:36] Speaker 1: but I can see this expanding to become one day
[20:40] Speaker 1: a university. Look at the Church has been giving rise
[20:44] Speaker 1: to universities for centuries. It's just been a thing the
[20:46] Speaker 1: Church does, and they arose often out of a perceived
[20:51] Speaker 1: need of that culture. This is the need of our culture.
[20:55] Speaker 1: And so I envision seminaries order university if I'm going
[21:01] Speaker 1: to go, you know, all the way.
[21:04] Speaker 2: Well, if I can tease out the university future a
[21:08] Speaker 2: little bit, I'd like to announce here, I think for
[21:10] Speaker 2: the first time that Word on Fire is now partnering
[21:14] Speaker 2: with the University of Saint Thomas and Houston to offer
[21:17] Speaker 2: a new master's degree program in evangelization and Culture. So
[21:22] Speaker 2: you can get a master's degree now in evangelization and culture.
[21:25] Speaker 2: The purpose is to help students become professionally formed in
[21:29] Speaker 2: the Word on Fire ethos. It's ideal for those who
[21:33] Speaker 2: work in ministry or Catholic education, those who maybe want
[21:36] Speaker 2: to pursue a PhD, or just ordinary Catholics who are
[21:40] Speaker 2: seeking deeper intellectual and spiritual formation. Interestingly, the degree will
[21:45] Speaker 2: include an optional course on using new Media to Evangelize,
[21:50] Speaker 2: which will include hands on training in the Media Lab
[21:53] Speaker 2: at the University of Saint Thomas. The degree is fully
[21:56] Speaker 2: accredited and it can be done one hundred percent online,
[22:00] Speaker 2: and however, students will have the option to spend an
[22:03] Speaker 2: optional summer at the University of Saint Thomas learning in person.
[22:07] Speaker 2: The professors will be a mix of professors from University
[22:10] Speaker 2: of Saint Thomas from the World on Fire Institute. But
[22:13] Speaker 2: this is happening within a matter of months. They are
[22:16] Speaker 2: launching the first in person summer session this coming summer
[22:21] Speaker 2: summer twenty twenty four, and then the online courses we'll
[22:23] Speaker 2: start in the fall of twenty twenty four, so get
[22:27] Speaker 2: excited about that. I think if you're a member of
[22:29] Speaker 2: the World on Fire Institute, you'll be among the first
[22:31] Speaker 2: to learn about and sign up for this new master's program,
[22:35] Speaker 2: which I think will fill up very quickly because they're
[22:37] Speaker 2: only taking a small number of students. So that's another
[22:39] Speaker 2: reason to get on board, get inside be a part
[22:42] Speaker 2: of this great community of evangelists. Well, it's time now
[22:54] Speaker 2: for our question from one of our listeners. Today we
[22:56] Speaker 2: have one from Meg in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Submitted her question
[23:01] Speaker 2: at the website Askbishop Baron dot com, which you can
[23:04] Speaker 2: as well. But Meg is asking about what happens at
[23:07] Speaker 2: the end of time regarding humans. Here's your question.
[23:14] Speaker 3: Him, Mishif Baron. This is Meg from Scranton, Pennsylvania, and
[23:18] Speaker 3: my question is at the end of time, will God
[23:22] Speaker 3: still create humans in heaven? Thank you for all you do,
[23:25] Speaker 3: God bless.
[23:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, the classical answer would be no to that question.
[23:31] Speaker 1: And you know, look at this way, God seems to
[23:34] Speaker 1: like this process of development unfolding. So Heaven is a
[23:39] Speaker 1: kind of terminus of a process that begins here. So
[23:44] Speaker 1: we're born, you know, in this on this earth and
[23:47] Speaker 1: in this environment, and we come of age morally and spiritually.
[23:51] Speaker 1: We're compelled to make decisions that form our character. And
[23:55] Speaker 1: so in this whole process we're kind of evolving. We're
[23:57] Speaker 1: developing toward the person and God wants us fully to
[24:01] Speaker 1: be and that comes to its fulfillment after we die
[24:05] Speaker 1: and we leave behind. You know this, this body of
[24:09] Speaker 1: death or this limited expression of our physicality, and then
[24:14] Speaker 1: come to a renewed, elevated physicality what Paul calls a
[24:19] Speaker 1: spiritual body in heaven. My point is that there's been
[24:22] Speaker 1: this sort of long process, so it would make sense
[24:26] Speaker 1: in a way for in heaven for God to be
[24:28] Speaker 1: now restarting that process. You know, Heaven is the culmination
[24:33] Speaker 1: of a process that begins with our birth here and
[24:37] Speaker 1: our coming of age in this environment. So that's probably
[24:39] Speaker 1: the way a quitness would get at them.
[24:43] Speaker 2: Well, thanks for that question, Megan. Thanks to all of
[24:45] Speaker 2: you for watching and listening. One more time, I want
[24:47] Speaker 2: to encourage you to join the Word on Fire Institute.
[24:50] Speaker 2: You can do so at the website Wordonfire dot org
[24:53] Speaker 2: slash Institute. We have a free thirty day trial so
[24:56] Speaker 2: you can sign up for free and watch the videos,
[24:58] Speaker 2: participate in the community, receive these amazing resources like the
[25:02] Speaker 2: Evangelization and Culture Journal and the free copy of the
[25:05] Speaker 2: Centered book. Start watching any of Bishop Baron's films. So
[25:08] Speaker 2: check it out. See what all the hype is about
[25:10] Speaker 2: and why twenty three thousand Catholics are already a part
[25:13] Speaker 2: of this thriving community. Again, the website's Word Onfire dot org,
[25:17] Speaker 2: Slash Institute. Well, thanks again for watching and listening. We'll
[25:21] Speaker 2: see you next time on the Word on Fire Show

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