This is Cardinal Francis George. I invite you to join me for the next two minutes to reflect

with Father Robert Barron on the Word of God, which is the Word on Fire. Word on Fire Catholic

Ministries is a non-profit ministry at the forefront of Catholic evangelization, using

new media to spread the faith and every continent. Father Barron challenges us to open our hearts

to the Word on Fire, which is God's Word of Love for each of us. If our hearts are open,

the Lord can change and transform us so that we might speak with love about the one who

is love. The global benefactors of Word on Fire with the support of the Archdiocese of

Chicago now present Word on Fire.

Let's be with you. Friends, today for this fifth Sunday of Lent, I'd like to focus on the

second reading, taken from Paul's letter to the Philippians. From time to time I think

it's good to focus on St. Paul, who obviously is a such an important figure in our tradition.

This letter to the Philippians, Paul wrote around the year 60. This community at Philippi

is one that he founded. Scholars' guests around the year 49 or year 50 with Silas. He came

to this town, named by the way for Philip of Macedon, who was the father of Alexander the

Great. By Paul's time it was a very Romanized city. Here's what I find fascinating. Philippi

is the first Christian community founded on the European mainland. All the previous work

was done in the Holy Land and Syria and Asia Minor, but now Paul comes to the European mainland

and finds this church. It's why in some ways all of European Christianity, and then by

extension the Christianity all over the world are descended from this little community at

Philippi. Paul writes this letter from prison. We're not quite sure where he was. He was

imprisoned a lot in the course of his ministry. He might have been in Ephesus, perhaps even in Rome,

but he writes from prison. He clearly loved this Christian community at Philippi. You can see in

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