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, I'm really delighted that on this Pentecost Sunday,

of course, one of the great feast days of the whole year, I can reflect on one of

my favorite passages in the New Testament. So the church gives it to us as the

second reading for Pentecost this year. I'm talking about a passage from the

fifth chapter of Paul's letter to the Galatians. Here's just a word by the way.

I'm currently reading NT writes a new biography of St. Paul, which is quite good.

Very lengthy, as all this books are. And I was intrigued by his suggestion, one of

the great Paul scholars in the world, that he thinks Galatians is the very first

letter of the Paul of a road. When I was going to school, the consensus was a

first Thessalonians, was the earliest Pauline letter. He makes an argument and I

won't rehearse it for you now, but that Galatians is the first letter in the

Paul road. So it's a very sacred text at the very least, one of his earliest

letters. Well, in this fifth chapter of the letter to the Galatians, he tells the

church, this very, very primitive Christian community, that the spirit is at

war with the flesh. Now, right away, we got to be careful. Hyper-careful.

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