AUGUST 14^th 2016. TWENTIETH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

GOSPEL: Luke 12:49-53

_________________________________________________________

(Translation of a homily by Don Fabio Rosini broadcast on Vatican Radio)

(Check us out on Facebook – Sunday Gospel Reflection)

Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel.

GOSPEL                                    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.”

THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . In the first reading we hear how the prophet Jeremiah was thrown into a well because people didn’t like what he was saying! The prophets challenged people and were rejected as a result. Jesus, too, challenges us. He wishes to bring a division into our lives between what is holy and what is not, between the heavenly and the earthly. Christ comes to separate us from that which does not lead to heaven. Sometimes it is said that inner peace is a sign of progress in the spiritual life, but this is simply not true! It is inner restlessness that drives the spiritual life, drives us to go beyond where we are now. In a marriage, the relationship either grows or stagnates. The couple either learn to love each other more, bearing each other’s weaknesses, or they retreat from each other to a safe distance where a sort of false peace prevails. There is no such thing as peaceful standing still in the spiritual life! The greatest of saints are most aware that there are things in their lives that must be eliminated. Each one of us, right up to our last breath, must engage in the combat between that which leads us to God and that which leads away. This Sunday may the Lord help us to accept the division that Christ brings to our hearts, separating us from that which does not lead to heaven.

The prophets challenged people and were rejected as a result. Jesus, too, challenges us. He wishes to bring a division into our lives between the good and the bad, the heavenly and the earthly. Christ comes to separate us from that which does not lead to heaven.

The first reading tells of the occasion when Jeremiah was locked up because he told the truth and discouraged the people. The prophet is simply saying what he must: that the human way of looking at things is not the way that things really are. Finally, a wise member of the community tells the king to take Jeremiah out of the well because without the prophet they will not know what to do. To listen to or not to listen to the prophet? - this is the question that the first reading puts before us. In the Gospel, Jesus asks: “Do you think that I have come to bring peace on earth? Not peace but division!” What can this mean? In the context of the early Christian community, people were living at a time of persecution when the acceptance of the Gospel often meant going against one’s own relatives. But the same is true in every age. St Francis had to separate himself from his Father who had opposed his following of the Lord in the harshest way possible. Even reading the Gospel today, we can see how Jesus came to bring about a separation. A superficial dictum from the spiritual life goes as follows: “If you are at peace, then what you are doing comes from God”. This is simply neither true nor false. Growth in the spiritual life does not mean a lessening of life’s tensions. Everyone, to the last day of their lives, is locked in internal combat between the old and the new person. Right to our last breath we must engage in the agony of passing from bad to good, and from good to better, and from better to sublime, and from sublime to heavenly. We must always choose the greater above the lesser, and this entails interior combat and inquietude. It is simply not true that spiritual progress consists in an ever greater acquisition of tranquility! Peace of this sort often comes from the demon, because the weight of the very real contradictions in our lives can be obscured only by substances (like alcohol) that lead to our delusion, or hours in front of the television that dull our apprehension of reality.

In the spiritual life the goal is not inner peace! Inner restlessness drives on on to become purer, closer to God, more capable of love

In the spiritual life, the feeling of restlessness is not simply a collateral effect; it is something proactive that stimulates growth. If people are not placed in uncomfortable circumstances, they will not be motivated to do anything. The spiritual life is something that must always be moving towards something new. If two spouses are content with the love they have for each other, the marriage will become predictable and banal. The relationship will begin to deteriorate. Many people interpret this phenomenon to be the result of the calming down of the passions after the couple has been married for some time, but this is an incorrect interpretation. A couple marries with all the zeal of the newly weds. Then they either grow or they wither; there is no middle way. We either go for that which is beyond, with a continually greater understanding of the other, with a greater capacity to compromise and bear with the weaknesses of the other; or the marriage declines into a situation where the couple keeps a respectable distance and maintains a sort of tranquility in the house, cut off from the inner turbulence of the other.

From what must I be separated? What is present in my life that Christ wants to eliminate?

Life must be a continual process of purification, a continual detachment with that part of us which Christ came to separate us from. Christ came to separate us from the confusion in our lives and to bring light, to remove that which is for heaven from that which is not for heaven, that which is for love from that which is not for love. No one on this earth has yet arrived at their destination. Even the holiest and purest of people are aware that there is still something which must be eliminated from their lives; in fact it is the holiest of people who are most conscious of this fact. A wonderful question that this Gospel raises is: “From what must I be separated?” The true prophet and the false prophet never say the same thing. To listen to the true prophet means to listen to someone who is critical of me, If, as in the first reading, I refuse to accept criticism, then I will lose the prophecy, throwing the prophet into the well. I must accept correction and accept my need for growth. This Sunday may the Lord help us to accept the division that Christ brings to our hearts, separating us from that which does not lead to heaven.