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. Friends, St. Paul

is very hard to understand. Let me just begin with that remark. You'll very often

over the years as I sit up in my presiders chair on Sunday and I hear the

words of St. Paul being proclaimed. It's usually the second reading at Mass. I

often think there's no way people are taking this in. I'm not blaming you. I

think we take these little snippets out of the letters of Paul and as he

Paul is also a densely complex writer. He's almost like a poet where he'll

pack an awful lot of meaning into a few short lines. The other problem with Paul

is the language he uses is often shifted in meaning over the century so that

often we'll take in almost the opposite of what Paul meant. All this is just a

way of saying what I open with. I think Paul is difficult to understand but you

know I love St. Paul and he's so important for understanding what Christianity is

about. He's the first great theologian of our tradition and in some ways all

the theology is just kind of a footnote to Paul. He's the one who explained to us

what this thing is all about. So what I'd like to do in this homily is move very

slowly through the brief second reading we have for today. It's a little snippet

...