20th Sunday in Ordinary Time
My grandson asked me the other day if God loved him. My response was yes; God loves everyone. He then asked if God loved him when he did something wrong. Again, my response was God loves us unconditionally, however, when we do something wrong, we create a self-inflicted separation from God, family, and friends, resulting in division.
Today’s gospel continues the theme that permeates the first two readings, one of conflict. The gospel is short but it packs a profound message, there will be division, often with the those whom we love the most. The solution is in the first words of Jesus: I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! Like Jesus, in Baptism, we become witnesses to the world that we are followers of Christ and that he is our Lord and Savior. This is our first call to set the world on fire with the love of Jesus.
Luke’s gospel has another reference to fire in the passage of the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus. Were not our hearts burning within us while we were on the way and opened the scriptures to us?
Central to the message of Saint Eymard was his reference to the Eucharist as fire. The Eucharist as fire was a means to cure our indifferences and divisions. In the words of Eymard: Be the apostle of the divine Eucharist, like a flame which enlightens and warms, like the Angel of his heart who will go to proclaim him to those who don’t know him and will encourage those who love him.
May the Eucharist we receive be a source of healing our divisions so that, like Eymard, we go forth to set the world on fire with the love of Jesus Christ.
Let us Pray:
In the oven, in the pitch black of the heat, of the sealed fire. In the oven, we are taken out of ourselves, into the unbearable. No direction known. No rescue available. Nothing but fire. It is what we are, what we become. Nothing. God’s heat or nothing. Norris, Gunilla Becoming Bread
