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, all

the readings for this weekend are in different ways about the law. We

Americans, you know, have a rather ambiguous relationship to the law. On the one

hand, we are a freedom-loving nation. Don't tread on me. Don't tell me what to do.

I have the right, as Thomas Jefferson said, to pursue happiness as I see fit.

There's something in us that box at the law. On the other hand, let's face it.

We're a very litigious society. Precisely because we're preoccupied with our

rights, lawyers are thick on the ground in American culture. So many of our

founding fathers were men of the law and the two great Protestant founders,

Martin Luther and John Calvin, who have profoundly influenced our own

cultural structure. Well, they were law students in their early careers. So we

hate the law and we love the law. We balk at the law and we need the law. We have a

kind of love-hate relationship with it. And probably to be honest, this makes us

like most people up and down the ages. It's what the Bible say about the law.

Listen to a passage from our first reading from Deuteronomy. Moses speaks to

the people. Now Israel, here are the statutes and decrees which I am teaching

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