At Masses around the world every day, millions of people, in the words of the gospel, “eat and drink” with the Lord—would Jesus disown any of them, the way the master does in the gospel story? Maybe more than most folks would assume.

The kingdom of God, the central teaching of Jesus’ ministry, is a new world coming. It’s a new way of being, a new way of living, seeing, acting, deciding, and valuing. It is, in other words, new wine, and because new ideas are rarely compatible with old ones, the old ones have to give way.

I’ve come to start a fire on this earth—how I wish it were blazing right now! I’ve come to change everything, turn everything right-side up—how I long for it to be finished! Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Not so. I’ve come to disrupt and confront!

IT IS UNCOMFORTABLE to hear Jesus say that he has come not for peace but for division—“to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” Is this some other Jesus, or do his words make us realize that here is a man of passion who so desires the coming of God’s kingdom that he can’t wait for that to happen?

Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins, and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.

Jesus himself brings conflict in the gospel, suggesting that neither family ties nor fear of submitting to rejection and persecution should stand in the way of salvation.

We can safely assume that Jesus was not a pyromaniac. So when he spoke of wanting to set the world on fire, what kind of fire was he talking about? In biblical imagery, fire is associated with God’s action in the world and the lives of individuals.

There is no wood better to kindle the fire of holy love than the wood of the cross, which Christ used for his own great sacrifice of boundless charity. —Saint Ignatius of Loyola