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 and 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, if you've been following these sermons in mind the

past couple of months, you know I've been focusing very much on the first

readings, you know, coming up out of the Old Testament because I think we

Catholics especially aren't that great at understanding the Old Testament. So

today I'm going to look at this marvelous passage from the book of the prophet

Ezekiel. Now Ezekiel, one of the four major prophets along with Isaiah, Jeremiah

and Daniel, also one of the most theologically profound and one of the most

mysterious of the prophets. In fact, ancient Israel had an adage that once you

not even approach Ezekiel till you're about 50. They thought prior to that you

just didn't have what it takes to read a text as complex as this one. So we'll

be reading from Ezekiel today and the passages from the 18th chapter. Now I

think the 18th chapter of Ezekiel represents a real breakthrough in the

consciousness of the West. You know, I'm a student of philosophy and you look at

people like Socrates and Plato and so on who did indeed represent great

breakthroughs are kind of watershed figures. But mind you, they're operating

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