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. Please be with you. Friends, we

continue this wonderful journey through the actually apostles during this

Easter season and the reading for today, the first reading is from the sixth

chapter of Acts and it has to do with the choosing of the first deacons and I've

preached on that actually many times but I want to focus on something different

today from this passage and it's a little line that's a bit of a throwaway

line but I think is is a normal thing important so they talk about the

preaching of the gospel, the spreading of the Word and then it says the number of

the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly even a large group of priests or

becoming obedient to the faith. Now as I say we might just you know pass over that

line but I think for people in the first century especially in a Jewish

audience that would have been a very interesting line. Now how come? Will priests

were so important in Jewish religious life? You know go back to the Old Testament

now there's a lot of talk about priesthood priests are people who perform

sacrifices who thereby affect a union between divinity and humanity even a

figure go back to Noah figure like Abraham Moses they're all priestly

...