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 nonprofit 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, the Gospel for today

is a passage from that extraordinary sermon in parables that you could find in the 13th

chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel. I mentioned I think last week that we have the sermon in

the Mount in chapters 5 through 7, but in 13 we have another sermon where he lays out the

teaching of the Lord in forms of parables. Jesus explains here the kingdom of God in these

provocative and puzzling stories that seem to be his preferred manner of preaching. From these

parables, we can still distill certain key laws of the spiritual life. All three parables

in today's Gospel emphasize the way that the kingdom of God, God's way of ordering things,

coexist alongside of elements that are opposed to it. How the emergence of the kingdom is sometimes

gradual and slow, often accompanied by struggle with things that are opposed to it.

Now, I know a lot of religious people find this puzzling, hard to understand. After all,

we're dealing with God. Who can do, presumably, whatever he wants. Why doesn't God just get on

with it and bring about the state of affairs that he desires? Why would the kingdom have to struggle

against opposing forces? Well, let's look at each one of these little stories in turn and see what we

can see. In the first parable, Jesus tells us the kingdom of God is like a man who sowed his

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