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,

today I want to do something I don't usually do which is to preach on the second

reading during these last several weeks we've been reading from Paul's letter

to the Romans and you know maybe in another year I could just focus on this

magnificent text. Paul to the Romans is one of the great texts in our whole

tradition. Paul is the first theologian. He's the first person really to think

the Christian thing through in a very disciplined way because of course all

his letters predate the gospels. Romans all written sometime maybe in the late

50s of the first century. It's Paul's longest and most systematic statement of

Christian faith. Almost every major theme in theology is in Romans. Whitehead said

that all the philosophies of footnote to Plato you could say all of Christian

theology is a footnote to Paul and Paul is at his fullest expression in the

letter to the Romans. So you get the impression I think it's an important

letter. Well today we have a very interesting famous passage and I'm just going

to read it to you. It's very brief. Oh the depth of the riches and the wisdom

and the knowledge of God how inscrutable are his judgments how unsurchable his

...