The Gospel for Thursday of the 29th week in Ordinary Time is taken from Luke 12:49 to the 53rd verse. Jesus said to his disciples, I’ve 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 his 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. Fire is often used as an image of transformation. Jesus knows that his message is radically different than everything that most people have thought about his Father and himself. And he longs to correct that.

But he knows that what’s going to happen as people change their minds and enter into a new world, a new way of seeing God, it is going to divide people. Some people welcome change, others resist it with all of their might. This division is natural. It should be expected. And what he’s praying for is that the desire to change and to believe in a new way is so intense that it’s like a fire that’s burning that cannot be put out. It’s an amazing example of what we see all around us, people divided over what is true.

SA CLOSING PRAYER Father, it is hard for us to change. And when we go through that process, we often feel that we have separated ourselves from people who think the way we do. Even if there’s a family member, give us the courage and the commitment to know that if it’s true, we must stay in touch with that truth and be patient with those who have resisted it. And we ask this in Jesus name, amen.