Friends, the statement of Jesus that we have in the Gospel for today is frightening: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” He’s throwing fire down, much like the God who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

Okay, so how do we make sense of all this? I thought the angels on Christmas morning said that he had come as the Prince of Peace? Jesus is the Incarnation of the God who is nothing but love, but this enfleshment takes place in the midst of a fallen, sinful world. Therefore, it will appear as something threatening, strange, off-putting.
 
The world, on the biblical reading, is a dysfunctional family. When Jesus comes, he necessarily comes as a breaker of the peace, as a threat to the dysfunctional family. Now we can begin to understand that strange language about setting three against two and two against three.
 
This is why Jesus wants to cast a consuming fire on the earth. He wants to burn away all that is opposed to God’s desire for us. He has to clear the ground before something new can be built. Is this utterly painful? Yes!

Bishop Robert Barron 

St. Anselm said, "For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe—that unless I believed, I shall not understand. —Saint Anselm. Human beings wonder about God. How do we understand who God really is as opposed to making up our own gods who meet our needs. Jesus came to bring fire, water and division - the things of God. Fr. John's homily for this weekend is found here.

This weekend there will be a second collection to support the Solidarity Fund for the Church in Africa. Although the Church in Africa is growing, many still lack access to basic resources and pastoral care. The Solidarity Fund supports pastoral projects to build the capacity of the Church and foster lasting peace and reconciliation in a continent often marked by division and tension. To learn more, visit www.usccb.org/africa.