Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

Sometimes we think that if I follow God’s will and commit myself to the Lord, everything will be easy and proceed smoothly and peacefully. Even some Christian churches promote a kind of theology that says if you live rightly and justly before God, then you will experience an absence of significant suffering and will have material and financial prosperity. Yet, “no slave his greater than his master” and if we follow Jesus who was persecuted and suffered, we too will suffer. Many holy men and women, called by the Lord throughout history, seem to have their share of hardships on account of responding to the Lord’s call.

The Prophet Jeremiah responds to God’s call and is faithful in preaching a difficult message, yet he finds himself sinking in the mud at the bottom of a cistern—not exactly a glamorous or honorable position. Jeremiah’s experience is consistent with the rest of the prophets and other saints who followed God, like St. Teresa of Avila, who in a time of frustration cried out to God, and is supposed to have said: “If this is how You treat Your friends, no wonder why You have so few of them!”

Elsewhere in the Gospel, Jesus indicated that discipleship would entail self-denial and taking up our cross daily—and the Gospel recounts how the demands of discipleship proved too much for some who would seek first to “bury my father” or “say farewell to my family” before following Jesus. While we are to “honor our father and mother,” it’s clear that the requirement of discipleship is to put God first, above all else. 

“Have I come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” As we see it more clearly in today’s world, some people simply don’t understand or accept the Christian way of life, and some of those people might be our own family members or friends. We will experience trials, we will experience suffering, we will probably experience this division about which Jesus speaks. Jesus continues, “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” Fire gives light and warmth—yes—but it also blazes intensely and fire purifies and burns away. Fire first destroys before there is the opportunity to renew and bring forth new growth. Fire destroys in order to renew, and the Holy Spirit works in us in a similar way. The fire of the Spirit that Jesus desires to cast down on the world will burn away our impurities—all those things that do not lead us to God. It’s painful, but God is always doing something new and restoring. We may not always understand what exactly God is doing in us, but we can trust that God is preparing us to receive the Divine love. Any trials or difficulties we experience have to be seen in relation to God’s overwhelming love for us. When our eyes are fixed on Jesus, we not only draw our strength from Him, but we also come to know the reality of Divine love…and this love is precisely the purifying fire that Jesus wishes to send upon the earth.

Reflection by Fr. Paul Sheller, OSB