17 August 25 Sunday Week 20 Ordinary Time
Jer 34:4-6,8-10; Ps 40; Heb 12:1-4; Lk12:49-53 Divine Impatience
The Gospel Reading today presents the seemingly impatient Christ. “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” (Lk 12:49) What is this fire that Jesus is talking about?
I do not think it’s like the destructive forest fires raging all over the world, nor like the cozy campfire for leisurely whiling away time, but more like the controlled flame we use for cooking. It is a fire that results in something good and beneficial. Christ’s fire would not be to destroy but to elicit the best in us.
Fire in the Scriptures symbolizes the presence of God, as seen in the burning bush by which God called Moses, the pillar of fire that guided the Israelites in the wilderness, and the tongues of fire at Pentecost. John the Baptist, too, told his followers that the Messiah would baptize with the purifying fire of the Holy Spirit. There is also the mystical fire that the two disciples on the road to Emmaus felt in their hearts after realizing that they had just encountered the Risen Lord. Indeed, it was the fulfillment of the Lord’s impatient wish.
As fire gives off light that illumines, it also gives off heat that purifies. In obliterating inordinate impurities in the heart, what remains is the crystallized essence of our relationship with God, our love of God. It is in this light that we may make sense of what the Lord means in declaring the breakup of family ties: parents against children, children against in-laws. Realigning one’s relationships may be part of the cost of discipleship, as following Christ takes precedence over even one’s family relations. But more than relationships with others, the exhortation to prefer nothing to the love of God requires severance from even one’s inmost preferences. And this may truly be challenging.
In the First Reading, the officials were authorized by the King to punish Prophet Jeremiah, whom they threw into a miry pit to put him to a slow death. Clinging fast to the status quo, they accused Jeremiah of demoralizing the people when he was only prophesying against their godless tendencies. Their opposition was motivated by their fear of the inconvenient but necessary change. This also prefigured what the Lord would have to endure, but from which He emerged victorious as the Letter to the Hebrews narrated in the Second Reading.
The fire that the Lord longed to set ablaze purifies so that self-will is shattered by adhering to the higher, or rather, the highest aspiration of abiding by God’s most holy will. And this gives fuel to the fire that enflames one’s whole person in fulfillment of the Lord’s impatient wish to set the world ablaze, beginning in one’s inner personal world. But as always, it all starts with the encounter with Christ, personally and then communally.
As Christians, our baptismal vows make us share in the kingly, priestly, and prophetic mission of Christ. As monastics, we further live this out through our monastic vows. May we ever prefer nothing to the love of Christ so He may keep our hearts aflame in obedience, stability, and fidelity to the monastic life. May He enlighten and enliven our journey to Him with a burning heart as He purifies and tapers off its inordinate impurities.
