I have come to set the earth on fire
23 OCTOBER (Lk 12,49-53)
For many of us the will of God is a burden. We often think of it as a very heavy load. This is the sign that we have not made it our own will, our desire, our own flesh and blood. It is outside of us, it is not in us. It is a strange thing. It is an intrusive body to be rejected, against which to protect and defend ourselves.
On the contrary, how different is the attitude of Jesus before the Father’s will! For him, the divine will is his own desire. It is the desire that accomplishes his life, gives it absolute perfection, realizes it in his supernatural purpose. It is the desire that fills the heart with divine and eternal peace only when it will be actualized.
Today, Jesus reveals to us two strong desires of his heart. The first is that the Holy Spirit soon descends onto the earth, the Divine Fire of truth and love enters into the hearts, the Divine Fire of the new creation and communion, which must destroy the old man and create the new man. It will have to create the new human family, in which everyone must have one heart and one soul. This Divine Fire is lit on earth in only one way: by bringing his body on the cross, nailing it on the wood, burning Jesus with divine charity and mercy for salvation, pouring it from his pierced heart for love. It is from his sacrifice, from the fire of his charity that the Holy Spirit is lit and is poured out into the hearts by faith.
The baptism of Jesus is not of water, not even of desire. It is the baptism of blood. Jesus knows that only by shedding his blood, the earth could have been washed from the filthiness of sin and transgression. Only by shedding his blood for the new and everlasting covenant the new man could have been born of. He feels anguish in his heart because this baptism still has not been achieved, even if it remains to be actualized. It is as if He asked the Father to shorten the time of this anguish. His is not an anguish for the martyrdom to be subjected to. It is an anguish because the martyrdom has not yet been accomplished. His is a true anguish of salvation, redemption and justification. He is anguished because the new man has not been created, yet.
“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.”
Jesus came to split humanity into two. There will be no longer believers and non-believers, atheists and religious persons, righteous and unrighteous, saints and sinners, believers and unbelievers. After his baptism, there will be only two categories of people: believers in Him and non-believers in Him. The non believers in Him will always hurtle against the believers in Him to destroy, annihilate, smother, extinguish them from the face of the earth. This division does not take place only at a global, cosmic and universal level. It takes place within every family. The non-believer in Christ Jesus will always be separated from the true believer in Him. It is by choice of life that this takes place and happens.
Faith in Christ and not faith in Christ do not produce the same result, do not walk on the same road, do not advance in the same direction. The believer in Christ will always walk on the path of justice and truth of the Gospel. The non-believer in him does not know the Gospel. He will follow the religion of the world, which is totally opposite and contrary to that of Jesus the Lord. Since the true believer in Jesus attests to non believer in him that his works are evil, for this reason the opposition might become even martyrdom, killing, loss of life on the part of the believer in the Lord Jesus. The division is innate to the Gospel. The Gospel is light. The world is darkness. The Gospel is fidelity to the divine will. The world is darkening of God in it.
Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us true believers in Christ.