Jesus, light my fire!

Good News Reflection
Thursday of the 29th Week of Ordinary Time
October 21, 2010

Today's Saint: Ursula
Pray for Catholic education:
http://wordbytes.org/saints/DailyPrayers/Ursula.htm

Today's Readings:
Eph 3:14-21
Ps 33:1-2,4-5,11-12,18-19
Luke 12:49-53
http://www.usccb.org/nab/102110.shtml
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/10_10_21.mp3

Jesus, light my fire!

If I were to choose one scripture that represents my prayer for you, it would be today's first reading. If I were to try to explain why – and why I write these daily Good News Reflections – it would be with the words of Jesus fromtoday's Gospel reading: "I want to light a fire; how I wish it were already blazing!"

None of us fully realizes how much God loves us. When we're unloving, it's because we don't understand the depth of God's unconditional, merciful, faithful, never-ending love for us. This love is the fire that burns up sin, sets us on fire with the light of Christ, and energizes us with the fuel of God's own energy.

God's love is the fire that ignites me each morning. Look around. Who else is on fire, burning with desire to serve him? Do you see it in every priest, deacon, religious, church staff and volunteer minister? Do others see it in you? How I wish every Christian had this fire igniting their activities on Earth! The world would be transformed.

God placed this fire within you at your baptism. Are you fanning this flame? Are you letting it light up the world around you?

Look at what Jesus said he had to do to set the world on fire. What baptism was he talking about? Not the water baptism he'd already received in the Jordan River. It was the baptism of painful self-sacrifice. The inner motivation that enabled him to endure the cross and accomplish the goal of providing us with eternal salvation came from a deep yearning to spread the fire of his love. It came from the passionate urgings of love, which filled him with an undying desire to rescue us from death and destruction.

Have you felt this way about anyone? The ones who are most on fire in their ministries are those who have suffered much and discovered God's love in the pain. When we make sacrifices because we feel a passionate love for others, we're spreading the fire of God's love. We're united to Jesus on the cross and his Easter resurrection. This is why Saint Paul said we must be "rooted and grounded in love."

By loving others, we come to know "the breadth and length and height and depth" of Christ's love. If we wait to feel loved before we give love, we never understand God's love.

Fire purifies us by separating the waste material from the precious; it destroys whatever does not belong to the kingdom of God. When we blaze with the fire of God's love, our sinful tendencies get burned out of us.

Jesus mentioned that this fire divides households, i.e., it divides us from loved ones who remain self-centered and unloving as they make choices that keep them trapped in their sinfulness. Nevertheless, we must continue to burn with love for them. This heats up the fire within us, which purifies us further. And gradually, the world becomes more heavenly.

© 2010 by Terry A. Modica
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