Good morning, this is Cardinal Francis George, and I invite you to join me for the next few minutes to reflect with Father Robert Baron on the Word of God, which is the Word on Fire.

Father Baron will challenge 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, who we might speak with love about the one who is love.

The Archdiocese of Chicago through the generosity of Sacred Heart Parishing Winnetka now presents the Word on Fire.

Peace be with you. Friends, I just finished reading a wonderful book, David McCulloch's biography of John Adams, our second president.

The book is, oh, it's 600 pages or so, but it really reads like a novel.

Now, this is not just a paid commercial for David McCulloch's book. It has something to do with the gospel, I think.

McCulloch is trying to find what it is about John Adams that makes him a great person.

Adams certainly was a man of terrific intelligence, of vivacity. He had a wonderful circle of friends, had a terrific influence, obviously.

But what McCulloch puts his finger on is, Adams capacity to take risks. Call it courage if you want, but at certain key moments in his life,

Adams was able to take a risk. And because of those risks, our country emerged.

Let me give you just a couple of examples of this. Back in 1775, 1776, there was certainly a consensus in the colonies that they were being taken advantage of by Great Britain.

There was an anger, certainly, overall kinds of economic and political matters. But there was by no means a consensus that revolution, independence, war were the route to go.

John Adams sets off in 1776 to join the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

It dawns on him with a great clarity that independence was what the colonies needed.

And Adams, almost by sheer force of personality, by his power persuasion, by his lively mind, begins to convince other members of the Congress that independence is what they need.

Throughout that hot summer of 1776, Adams cajoled and argued and manipulated and twisted arms and finally brought them around with the help of Jefferson and Franklin and others.

But largely it was Adams who brought them around to accepting independence. Then came the risk.

Adams and with them, these other members of the Congress, affixed their names to the Declaration of Independence.

Now, we look back after more than 200 years and we see this event as wonderful and monumental and we see these figures almost as like wax figures in a museum.

But think of the time, they knew when they were affixing their names to that document, they were signing in a certain sense their death warrant.

It was by no means guaranteed that America would win the war. They were up against the most powerful military force on the planet.

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