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, we've

come to the end of the Lenten season and on this Palm Sunday it's our

privilege to hear from one of the passion readings. This year of course from the

gospel of Matthew. Martin Kaler was a Protestant theologian from the early

20th century. He famously said the gospels are really passion narratives with

long introductions. What he meant of course was the gospels really are all about

the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. The whole message is summed up in

these great narratives. Everything else, Jesus teaching His miracles, all His

actions as public life in many ways are simply introductions to what occurs in

the passion. And so on this Palm Sunday we meditate on this sober and somber

reading, Jesus' journey toward death. I think what you see especially clearly in

Matthew is that Jesus is the one who journeys into the far country, into the

far country of sin, of human dysfunction, of all that separates us from the love

of God. Keep in mind throughout the gospels, Jesus is a friend of sinners. I've

not come for the healthy, I've come for the sick, and so He associates

throughout His life with the marginalized, the hopeless, the lawbreakers, the

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