This is Cardinal Francis George. I invite you to join me for the next two minutes to reflect

with Father Robert Barron on the Word of God, which is the Word on Fire. Word on Fire Catholic

Ministries is a non-profit ministry at the forefront of Catholic evangelization, using

new media to spread the faith and every continent. Father Barron challenges us to open our hearts

to the Word on Fire, which is God's Word of Love for each of us. If our hearts are open,

the Lord can change and transform us so that we might speak with love about the one who is

love. The global benefactors of Word on Fire with the support of the Archdiocese of Chicago

now present Word on Fire. Peace be with you. Friends, our three readings for this weekend

tell us a great deal about the church. I want to draw a lesson from each one of them. Let's

start with the first reading. It's from the 15th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, and it

brings us right into the heart of a controversy that almost brought the early church to its knees.

It almost shipwrecked the early church. There was a tension between tradition and novelty in the

early church, if I can put it that way. All the first Christians were Jews raised according to

the disciplines of the Jewish religion. Their minds formed according to Torah and the prophets.

Jesus was a Jew who went up every year to the temple, who as a child was circumcised on the eighth

day, who commented on the Torah and the synagogue. Furthermore, Jesus was recognized by these first

believers as the fulfillment of Judaism, the culmination of God's promises to his people.

Therefore, it was only natural that even those who believed in Jesus as the risen son of God

would want to continue to function as Jews. In fact, we hear in Luke's Gospel that the disciples

after the ascension spent their days in the Jerusalem temple praising God. They were acting as

good Jews. There's the tradition side, if you want. And yet, at the same time, Jesus clearly

represented something new. Paul was the one who saw this most clearly. In light of the cross

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