Thursday in the 29th Week of Ordinary Time, October 24, 2024

Luke 12, 49-53

Jesus said to his disciples: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three; a father will be divided against his son and a son against his father, a mother against her daughter and a daughter against her mother, a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!”  The human language the Son of God deigned to use in his Incarnation could hardly express the ferocity of his desire to save the world.    And for the Lord, this saving meant to fill every heart with the fiery love for it that he had for them.  And this was no general statement: in that moment he was thinking particularly of each human person who would ever live.  We might think here of how the Lord characterized his relationship with each of us as a Shepherd who goes after the lost sheep and greatly rejoices upon finding it (cf. Matthew 18, 12-13).  He runs through the fields, ignoring any danger to himself, scanning the land as he runs.  He hurries until he is nearly exhausted lest it fall into a hole and die or become the prey of a lion.  When he finally locates the lost sheep he increases his speed and falls upon it, out of breath.  The Lord Jesus does this for each one of us, pursuing us with his grace.

“There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!”  The Lord had mentioned this baptism on an earlier occasion when James and John asked to sit on his right and on his left when he came into his kingdom: “And Jesus said to them: You know not what you ask. Can you drink of the chalice that I drink of or be baptized with the baptism wherewith I am baptized?” (Mark 10, 38).  He was speaking of his Passion and Death.  The Greek word means “washing”: the Lord uses it to indicate that he would be washed with his own Blood.  But how he longs for this to take place!

“Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?”  The Prophet Isaiah calls him “the Prince of peace” (Isaiah 9, 6), meaning that those who possess him, possess peace.  But there will be some who are on fire in love with Jesus and some who will reject him and seek to extinguish the fire in others.  For this reason, even households will be divided: “From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three.”  Love for Jesus Christ will cause those who love him to shun sinful activities which they previously enjoyed with others, and those who are wicked will not be content to let them go their way.  The wicked will see themselves as indicted by the conversion of their family members or former friends, and so they must fight this by attacking them.  Even those sharing belief in God will be divided, such as when a son goes off to become a priest or a daughter enters a convent.  Parents may vehemently oppose this for completely selfish reasons.

The Son of God blazes with his love.  We pray that we may experience this blazing so that, on fire ourselves, we may return it.