Jer. 38:4-6, 8-10; Ps. 40:2-4, 18; Heb. 12:1-4; Lk. 12:49-53
“I have come to set the earth on fire.” If our faith on fire or simply lukewarm? Jesus speaks of a baptism to come though he was already baptized by water in the Jordan river by John the Baptist. His great “anguish until it is accomplished” is his passion and death on the cross. Christ teaching was a two-edge sword of division.
For the institutions of this time there was the Jewish tradition with governance by its law and the other was the Roman political structure in control of the territory or as we would refer to in our time as church and state. Jesus word would cut through both ways dividing long held Jewish beliefs and traditions for families and threatening the status quo for the state. Who is the identified enemy? For many it became the messenger, Christ and his followers. For Christ it was peoples’ sin the “struggle…you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.”
St. Francis of Assisi threw himself on thorn bushes to mortify his body against the temptation of sin. Other saints have used flagellation to mortify their bodies and some have done simple acts of mortification such as placing a pebble in their shoe to feel the constant reminder for holiness in every step of discomfort. Even modern psychology in behavior therapy will use the example of having a rubber band on your wrist to pop yourself every time you are tempted to do a negative behavior like biting your nails to break the habit. As a church we have the Lenten season to deny ourselves with fasting and abstinence to mortify our bodies. For the world a voice against the normalization of sin must be silenced.
Jerimiah was a voice against sin in his time. He prefigures Christ the King. King Zedekiah hands him over to the people for his crime. What is his crime? He is “speaking” and teaching the people against sin and this is judged as “not interested in the welfare of our people but in their ruin.” When evil held as good and good is attacked as evil kingdoms fall to ruin. The voice of Jeremiah, the voice of Christ is counterculture.
Before, during and after Christ until the present to challenge the institutional norms is treated as a crime worthy of death. We have only to look at our own world history in the making to see the same culture of death as Jerimiah and Christ faced. Speak of sin and you will quickly make enemies and there is no end to the labels that are thrown out ending in “phobic” to silence anyone willing to speak up. It is not a phobia to speak of the natural law of marriage between male and female, or beliefs and lifestyles contrary to the natural law. It is simply defending God’s creation through his Word and his Word is the foundation of his creation in natural law. It is the source of life not for his good but or our greater good.
I was listening to a homily on EWTN where the priest shared a story of another priest who approached a group promoting the Church of Satan. He asked them what they believed. They said they practiced being “friends of Satan”. The taught their followers to practice thinking of themselves a little more each day. If everyone follows this logic to the end then every person will create an island within themselves to exist in isolation from others. To have a friend is to think of the other before yourself. The great lie is Satan has no friends, it is all about him and his followers are simply puppets of this lie. Place a person in solitary confinement and deny them all human contact and they are more likely to become depressed and suicidal than to grow in happiness and peace. Hell is a deprivation of love.
“Lord, come to my aid!” The pit of destruction is to live thinking of ourselves more and more until we become abandoned in the mud of sin and swamp of evil. Jeremiah preached against sin and was thrown into the pit by many but it took only one person to intercede for him with a voice for justice. We must be that voice of justice in this world. We can go to Christ our King to hear our cry for our own family, our church, and all the sins of the world. We can offer our sacrifices coming to Mass, in Adoration, in sharing our faith. When we make an offering of ourselves Christ will give us what we are to speak and how we are to serve. Be open to this grace and trust in the Lord.
The earth is on fire as Jesus foretold and from this fire some will journey down to the fire of hell. Others will pass through the fire of purgatory that purifies on the way to heaven. One path has no end to pain and the other is a flame of love to enter into God’s friendship. This is the fire of love that calls the sinner to repentance and divides the righteous from the unrighteous. If our faith is on fire, we are a voice for righteousness ready to love the sinner not the sin. Let us pray for those who identify more with the sin that with the creator while there is still time. The fire of faith is a flame of love from the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
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