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 be with you. They say

fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Well I'm going to rush in today to

some stormy waters by looking at what really was the central issue of the

Protestant Reformation. They divide between Protestants and Catholics around this

issue of faith and works or faith and the law. And it's prompted by our second

reading. I've not been focusing on Romans. We've been reading from it the last

several weeks but it's Paul's greatest statement of his theology. It's the

first theologian of the church, Paul, in his greatest statement of the

Christian faith. And it's toward the end of the letter where in Romans chapter

13 and here's what he says, brother and sisters, oh nothing to anyone except to

love one another for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The one

who loves another has fulfilled the law. Now let's go back to the beginning of the

Protestant Reformation when Martin Luther famously says what he discovered in

Paul and in texts like Romans and Galatians and Ephesians and others is it

seems that we're justified or saved, set right not by works of the law but by

faith. So Luther says by grace through faith and he intensifies it by saying

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