Being Lit with the Fire of Christ, 29th Thursday (I), October 21, 2021

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Thursday of the 29th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of Blessed Pino Puglisi
October 21, 2021
Rom 6:19-23, Ps 1, Lk 12:49-53

To listen to an audio of this homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily:

• “I have come to set the earth on fire,” Jesus tells us today, “and how I wish it were already blazing!” Over the last couple of days, Jesus has described for us how he wants us to have our lamps lit for him; how he wants our loins girt to work with him for and in his kingdom and to run to bring the Gospel to others; how he wants us to be like faithful and prudent stewards who know of their master’s imminent return and care for his menservants and maidservants with the gifts he has given us for that purpose. All of this is meant to be interpreted within what he tells us today: that he ardently desires this and wants us to respond to these summons with similar fire. He wants his fire to be in us and our fire to be all-consuming. He wants us to share the fire of his love. The ignition for that world-wide bonfire he has come to set happened on Golgotha, when we were able to witness the Love of God crucified. That’s the reference to “baptism” that Jesus longed to undergo, the baptism of blood on Calvary. There’s no great witness to his fire.
• But he says that that fire comes with suffering. There were and are many who have responded to his ardent love with coldness or tepidity. There were and are many who have rejected his love. And when we’re inflamed with the same divine fire, we will experience those reactions, too. That’s why Jesus immediately after talking about the fire he seeks to set in us so that we may have our lamps perpetually lit and loins girt as faithful and prudent stewards describes the division that fire will cause. He says that he’s come not to bring “peace,” understood as a life without conflict, but “division,” and even our families would be divided. This was not because Christ is a divider — as he said during the Last Supper and we ponder each Mass: he came to give us peace and leave us his peace, the fruit of a right relationship with God — but when someone opts for Christ, others who want to be first get jealous and angry, and that’s what divides. This was true in the early Church. Often when Jews converted to Christianity, they were disowned by their family. Still today when a Muslim converts to Christianity in various fundamentalist Muslim countries, or a Hindu converts in certain fundamentalist areas in India, a contract is put out on them, most often by the members of his or her own family. Still, too, in many families, when one person becomes on fire for the faith, the tepid members of the family can begin to resist, mock and even persecute, at the “holier-than-you-goodie-two-shoes” in their midst. When one person who has caught the flame of faith wants to respond to Love with the gift of his or her life as a priest, religious or consecrated person, often other family members put up strong opposition. This is what Jesus is describing. The key for all of us is that we see that our choice for Christ must come first, above our other choices, above our other loves, even if we should have to suffer as a result of it. Jesus, after all, has made that choice for us.
• The other readings show some of the consequences of living our faith with the fire of love for God and others. The first Psalm describes the one on fire with love for God as one someone 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.” In other words, he chooses his friends with care to protect and augment his flame, he delights in Sacred Scripture because the Lord’s word is a lamp for his steps, he delights in the Commandments which are expressions of love for God and others, he delights in the Lord and perseveringly and faithfully prays about what God has revealed day and night.  The Psalm goes on to say, “He is like a tree planted near running water, that yields its fruit in due season, and whose leaves never fade.” He plants himself, in other words, in Christ, the living water, and that’s the source of continued fruitfulness no matter the season. This is contrasted with the fool, the wicked, who are “like chaff which the wind drives away,” whose way “vanishes.” The this-worldly passions that burn him up leave him unsubstantial, like dead chaff blown away in the breeze.
• St. Paul similarly describes some of the practical consequences of being inflamed by Christ in the first reading. Building on what he taught us yesterday in his letter to the Romans, St. Paul says that the fire of Christ is meant to change the fundamental orientation of our life. Prior to Christ, we “presented the parts of [our] bodies as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness for lawlessness,” but once Christ has come we “now present them as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.” We go from being slaves to sin to slaves of God, yoked to his holiness, in one consuming flame. The first path leads to death. The second leads to “eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” St. Paul is saying throughout this sixth chapter of his letter to the Romans that we have to make a choice to become slaves, committed life-long servants of Christ, seeking his will not ours, his kingdom, not ours, his glory, not ours. Many Christians only go half-way in their discipleship. They don’t respond to God’s love with a total commitment. God wants to give us his fire so that we may make and keep such a commitment in response to his.
• Today the Church remembers someone who was on fire for the love of God, who was willing to be baptized in the depth of Calvary out of love for him and others, who was hated by those in his parish and community whom he was calling to conversion, who was a slave to righteousness for sanctification murdered by those who were slaves to impurity and lawlessness. As a pastor, he fought against the mafia dominating his neighborhood and intimidating the lives of his parishioners in Palermo, Sicily. It brought him many enemies among his neighbors, parishioners and even the Church hierarchy. One Cardinal of Palermo, Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini, once even infamously said when asked about the mafia whether it was a brand of detergent. It led him to criticize the Church, but in a holy way, “like a mother,” he quipped, “not a mother-in-law.” With little support, he tried to change the mentality of his parishioners, conditioned by omertà, or a shamed silence, to give leads to authorities about the crimes of the Mafia, he refused their money for the Church and would not allow mafia members in his processions. On Sept. 15, 1993, the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows and his 56th birthday, he was shot outside his rectory, a hit ordered by the local mafia bosses Filippo and Giuseppe Graviano. One of the hitmen later confessed and said what were Don Puglisi’s final words, “I’ve been expecting you.” His murder shocked Italy. Pope John Paul II eventually traveled there the following year and called him a “courageous exponent of the Gospel.” Pope Benedict decreed his martyrdom and Pope Francis authorized his beatification in May 2013, calling him, “an exemplary priest and martyr.” We give thanks for the fire of Christ that he contained within and for the fire he sought to ignite. He had a famous saying, now inscribed on various walls and posters in Palermo and elsewhere, “Se ognuno fa qualcosa, allora si può fare molto,” which means, “If everyone does something, then much can be done.” If each of us responds with a little fire, in other words, we can become a great bonfire, the fire Christ came and remains in anguish until it has consumed the world.
• In a poem, St. Ephrem writes from the perspective of Jesus, “Take, eat, entertaining no doubt of faith, because this is My Body, and whoever eats it in belief eats in it Fire and Spirit.’” To enter into Communion with the Lord is to consume “Fire” and “Spirit,” a fire and a Holy Spirit that can transform our entire life. We can also recall St. Catherine of Siena, whose most famous line, one that St. John Paul II often quoted in his talks to young people, was “Se sarete quello che dovete essere, metterete fuoco in tutta Italia, non tanto costì.” “If you are who you should be, you will set not only Italy but the whole world ablaze.” Christ has come to set the world on fire. He was come to set us on fire. Through the intercession of Blessed Pino Puglisi, let us ask for the grace to cooperate with how that loving Flame wants to transforms us and through us the world.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

Reading 1
ROM 6:19-23

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