Daily Liturgy
Thursday October 21
TWENTY-NINETH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
I HAVE COME TO BRING FIRE
Introduction
Christ has set us free for the kingdom and the life and love of God. It is a liberty that is no longer license, a liberty that reshapes us in Christ and opens us to service of God and people. It is all a gift from God.
Today our Lord confronts us with the question: How fiery is your love and your faith? Can our faith accept contradiction and ridicule without letting us be reduced to silence? Perhaps we are resigned to the evil in us and in the world and fail to stand up for what is right and good. If our love for the Lord and people is strong enough, we do not tolerate an easy peace that puts our conscience to sleep. Let the fire of the Spirit burn in us.
Opening Prayer
Lord our God,
you have set us free in Christ,
free from our selfishness,
free from shame and fear,
free for life and service.
God, accept our thanks for this free gift.
Give us the strength, day after day,
to grow in this liberty
and to help our little or large world
to attain the same freedom
from sin and its consequences:
from injustice, suffering, and oppression.
One day may we be completely free
in your eternal home,
through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Reading 1: Rom 6:19-23
Brothers and sisters:
I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your nature.
For just as you presented the parts of your bodies as slaves to impurity
and to lawlessness for lawlessness,
so now present them as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness.
But what profit did you get then
from the things of which you are now ashamed?
For the end of those things is death.
But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God,
the benefit that you have leads to sanctification,
and its end is eternal life.
For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Responsorial Psalm: PS 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6
(Ps 40:5) Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Alleluia: Phil 3:8-9
Alleluia, alleluia.
I consider all things so much rubbish
that I may gain Christ and be found in him.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel: Lk 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.”
Intercessions
– Jesus, set your Church afire with the flame of a deep concern to bring your good news to all. May the gospel dialogue with the world and with its aspirations and needs, we pray:
– Jesus, give the warmth of your strength to all who have to pass through the fire of suffering, failure and discrimination and keep them from discouragement, we pray:
– Jesus, light your fire again in the hearts of those whose faith has become lukewarm or who have lost the way to you, we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
God our Father,
these gifts of bread and wine
are humble offerings
but they stand for all the love
of which we are capable.
Bring them to life and let them become
the living sign of your love for people,
your Son Jesus Christ.
Through him fill our banal words
with a spirit of loving service springing from the heart,
and our inept gestures of love for one another
with the wholeness and fullness
of the love of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Prayer after Communion
God, our Father,
your Son came to bring fire on earth;
he himself passed through the fire of life.
Make us realize, Lord, and accept
that we may not seek peace at any cost.
Give us the fire of your Spirit
that we may not seek security
in the self-contentment of the status quo,
but go and commit ourselves
like Jesus, your Son and our Lord.
Blessing
Too often the fire of faith and love is easily extinguished in us. We are not heroes, or perhaps only rarely. It is easier to be left in peace. May God preserve us from a guilty peace and keep the fire of faith and love alive in us, and may God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Commentary
A New Testament idea is that Christ came as an agent of peace. But the Gospel reading today seems to claim just the opposite. Christ asserts that he has come to establish not peace but division. How are we to understand this claim? Certainly, Christs message is one of peace; that is clear in his teaching in its entirety. Love stands at the very heart of his message. But it is in the reception of the message that discord lies. In the acceptance or rejection of his teaching, families will be torn asunder. Father against son, daughter against mother, in-laws against each other. This is not the desire of Christ, nor does it reflect his teaching. But his message is capable of causing deep cleavage within a family. In that sense, Christ has brought division.
Paul again exhorts the Romans to turn their bodies away from sin and impurity; they should become now slaves of righteousness for sanctification. When they were slaves of sin, they reaped its harvest, which is death. But on this new and better track, they are slaves of God in a sanctification that leads to eternal life. In summary, sin pays wages, and that is death. On God’s side there are no wages since nothing is earned. It is the gift of God that is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In our dealings with God there are no bargaining chips since everything is pure gift for which we can only be grateful. That gift, however, can continue to cause strife and division even within a family. Parents suffer greatly when children walk away from their faith. Or it may be that a child embraces the faith while parents remain apart or perhaps even hostile. We must always try to overcome hostilities. We reject the sin and love the sinner. That remains always the Christian response.
Points to Ponder
Sin pays wages
Life in Christ is gift
Christ as a source of division.