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, we turn now from our Johannine hiatus we were looking at chapter six of

John's gospel for the past several weeks we return now to our reading of the

Gospel of Mark which we're doing during this liturgical cycle.

And the readings today, all three of them,

are about the law.

And the law is a very interesting theme now in the Bible.

And I think of, from an an American standpoint we have this very

ambiguous relationship to law. On the one hand you know we're a nation of

independently minded people. Don't tread on me, don't tell me what to do.

There's kind of a libertarian streak within Americans.

We don't like the law imposing itself on us.

At the same time, let's face it, we are a hyper litigious society.

Lawyers and laws are very thick on the ground in our society.

You know, people will make fun sometimes of the ancient Jewish law, you know know with its 600 and some precepts.

That's nothing compared to the American book of legal statutes.

Are you kidding it would dwarf anything in the Bible?

So we we kind of balk at the law,

...