Set the earth on fire

Jesus says to us in today’s Gospel: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing.” In the Bible, fire is often used to describe God’s burning love for men. This divine love is what made the Word become man: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son”. Jesus voluntarily gave up his life on the Cross: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lays down his life for his friends”. We experience personally his love in the Eucharist, when we meet him in the bread of life. Saint Teresa of Jesus was travelling through Spain to set up a new convent. It was January, very cold, and it was raining. She was travelling in a cart, the roads were full of mud, and she was feeling sick. She complained to Jesus. He told her: “Teresa don’t worry about the cold; I am the real heat.”

Out of the three theological virtues, only charity remains in the other life. Faith is the door, hope helps us to go through, but love is what we find on the other side. Love remains for ever. Our love of God is a reflection of the love he has for us. When we die we are going to experience fully the fire of the love of God. Here on earth we are not ready to withstand it. This is why God doesn’t normally appears to us. We might disappear. We need a transformation, a renovation actualised through grace and our struggle. Benedict XVI says that the same fire of the love of God, consumes people in hell, purifies people in purgatory, and inflames people in heaven.

For a fire to last it has to be looked after, otherwise it is extinguished. It needs fuel to be added constantly. The same happens with any human love. If you take the other person for granted, if you don’t respect each other, the flame normally dies. For us to maintain our love of God, we need every day to burn a bit of our selfishness, a bit of our pride, of our vanity, of our sensuality. Our little fire has to grow, until it becomes a tremendous bush fire, that burns everything that is in its path. This is why the coming of Jesus is a cause of dissension. During his own life on earth, Christ was a source of contradictions. This fire of his love is infinite, all powerful. You cannot be indifferent in front of it. This fire has an important quality: it cannot be contained, it spreads everywhere. We can check the purity of our love by seeing how it inflames others. This is what the saints have done: set others ablaze.

We are constantly reminded that God is love, that his fire is everlastingly maintained. He has loved us first; we are here because of his love for us. The Lord wants us to respond, to have the fire of his love in our hearts, to be fully aflame. He loves each one of us with a personal love; we are all unique in his eyes. Because our soul is immortal, in a way, God cannot forget about us; he has never ceased to love us, to help us, to protect us. God loves us with an unconditional love, with no strings attached.

The Cure of Ars used to say that “to be holy, you need to be mad.” Saint Josemaria said of himself: “I am mad, from the love of God.” Jesus’ relatives called him mad when they didn’t understand him. On Pentecost day, people thought the apostles were drunk, after being filled with the Holy Spirit. When Saint Paul explained his conversion to king Agrippa, Festus called him mad. Saint Francis was called “the mad man of Assisi.” The holier you are, the more people will think you are ready to be locked up in a psychiatric hospital. We say that love is crazy, that out of love people do amazing things. We cannot forget that God is crazy for us. We should think about what helps us to love him more. If we feel cold in front of God, we can ask Mary our Mother, to kindle the embers of our

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The Assumption

Today we celebrate the feast day of the Assumption of our Mother to heaven. What can we say about what happened on that day? We haven’t got much information. Saint John witnessed it and didn’t tell us anything. John, you told us all about the life of Jesus, with plenty of details, but you didn’t want to tell us about our Lady leaving earth. She is our Mother too, and we would have liked to know more about her. But you preferred to be silent. We needed to know about how Jesus gave his life for us, but we didn’t need to know how our Mother flew up to heaven. It is better for our imagination; we can let it free. It took the Church a long time to declare the dogma, in 1950. Now we can let our imagination fly and accompany her up to heaven.

The apocryphal gospels, those books written by the early Christians to try to fill the gaps, say that the apostles came back to say good bye to our Mother. They say that they came back each in his own cloud, first Saint Peter and then Saint Paul. Maybe John didn’t tell us this because nobody would have believed him. Saint James was already dead and Saint Thomas, as always, arrived late, because he came back all the way from India. We understand why they wanted to be back. We too want to be there to say good bye to our mother.

There is a debate about what happened, if our Lady died or not, before she went up to heaven. She would have liked to follow her Son, and die with him on the cross. But Jesus didn’t want her to endure his horrible death. No son wants his mother to suffer. I don’t think Jesus wanted his mother to die either. God wanted her, body and soul in heaven, without her beautiful body experiencing corruption. That’s why she fell asleep. You could call it a sweet death. That’s how saints normally pass away, falling asleep, in a simple and beautiful manner. You die in the way you live. There is a feast in the East called the Dormition of our Lady, dating from the sixth century. According to tradition she fell asleep and they placed her in a tomb. When Saint Thomas arrived, he wanted to see her, and they found out that the tomb was empty. That is why we don’t have any relics from her body.

How did she fly to heaven? God has his ways of moving people. Most likely it was a transport of love. When love is very intense, it can do things that reason cannot understand. Love is crazy, endures all things, achieves all things. Love can travel through space and time. There is no better means of transport than going through the people we love. Love fired the engines of her soul and lifted her up all the way to heaven.

Tradition says that our Lady’s beauty, which was veiled here on earth so as not to blind human beings, not to drive them crazy, was revealed on her way to heaven, showing her in all her splendour, dazzling angels and saints in all its wonder. They never have seen anybody like that, not even in paradise. The book of Revelation tries to describe her, precisely with the words of Saint John: “A great sign appeared in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, the moon beneath her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head.” I don’t think it is possible to find a better description of our Mother’s countenance. At last Saint John opened his soul and told us a bit about her Assumption.

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Waiting for the Lord

“Gird your loins and light your lamps”, Jesus is telling us today. Fasten your seat belt and start the engine, would be a modern way of saying the same. These are the two attitudes the Gospel is asking us to have. First, be ready for the journey, and then turn on the lights outside, to welcome the guest who is coming. The same expression from the parable of the foolish virgins: the bridegroom is coming, go out to meet him. Come out of yourself and welcome him. He has dropped us here and he is coming to pick us up. We are a rough diamond and he expects us to become a beautiful precious stone. This is the attitude we should have: waiting for the Lord.

In our society we don’t like waiting. We want things here and now. Drive throughs, 24/7, fast food, shopping online, drones dropping our goodies. We don’t like waiting for the Lord our whole life. We want to be in control, plan our future, foresee coming situations, have everything assured. We would like to know when the Lord is coming. And today in the Gospel Jesus is telling us that he “is coming at an hour we do not expect.” It is easy to be ready for one day or for a week; it is not easy to be ready every day. When we are young and when we are old; when we are healthy and when we are sick; when the sun is shining and when a storm is raging.

Waiting doesn’t mean a passive attitude. On the contrary, our waiting for the Lord demands a very active disposition, standing up, listening, looking towards the horizon. It means to examine our conscience to see if our luggage is ready, to discover what is missing or what we have forgotten. It means to fine tune our engine, to polish the rough edges, to get rid of excess baggage, to check if the lights are working, if we have put the rubbish out, if there is enough food for the journey. It is a daily disposition of being ready for him, to follow him, to be aware of his presence.

When our Lord comes to pick us up, we need to be standing, walking towards him, our eyes fixed on our destination, eternity, to see if we can see his face. We need to be ready to open the door, because the handle is in our side. He can knock on our door at any time and he must not find us sleeping, dozing in a slumber, or away shopping. We cannot just spend our time watching movies, listening to music, playing computer games, surfing the social media, following our sport’s team. We cannot give up, sit on the side of the road and take a siesta.

Two practical things for us to be ready: first to examine our conscience, to know where we have to struggle, what we have to do to improve every day. Love is always asking the person we love what we need to change. We should ask Our Lord what he wants us to do today, to look at God’s agenda. Second thing is to be patient. It takes a long time to grow, to mature, every day a little bit, baby steps, just one thing at the time. We cannot normally tackle big things. God is very patient with us. We don’t know when he is coming, but we still have time. He’ll come when we less expect it, like a thief in the night. But if we are prepared, we’ll see him coming, just as holy people can sense when they are going to die, because they are longing for him.

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Parable of the rich fool

Today in the Gospel Jesus gives us the parable of the rich fool. This is how he calls him. We are the person in this parable. We are him because we normally act like this man. Jesus calls us fools because we are silly, because we won’t learn. We keep thinking that we are going to make a difference, that we are going to do something important, that will engrave our names in the golden book of history. We are wasting our time. We come naked from God and we go back to Him the same way. We cannot take anything with us. We would like to leave something behind, but all the things that we are doing here will disappear like a puff of smoke. We are thinking constantly about the things here on earth, forgetting that we are destined for eternity. Today’s readings remind us of this reality.

The first reading begins with this expression: “Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!” They say that the literal Hebrew translation is more like this: Bubble of bubbles, everything is a bubble. A bubble looks beautiful when it blows around, transparent, effortless in its movements; we would like to hold it, but when we touch it, it pops up and disappears. It is a great comparison for what our society has to offer: an empty bubble which is going to burst sooner rather than later. Anything we look for on the net is just an electric spark stored in the cloud, that has a very limited life.

In the second reading Saint Paul tells us: “Seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” At the beginning of the Preface of the Mass, the priest is telling us the same, trying to direct our eyes towards heaven, to what is above our heads, saying: “Lift up your hearts!” And we answer earnestly: “We lift them up to the Lord!” In the Gospel acclamation we are reminded of one of the beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” How could our hearts be blessed if they are attached to earthly things? Is my heart in material treasures or in spiritual ones? They say there are three kinds of currencies: paper, crypto and spiritual. Which one are we using most? There is only one which can be stored in heaven.

We are the man of the parable, saving money for the future, thinking about our retirement, making plans without knowing what is going to happen. We are gathering things in cupboards that are going to be emptied at the end of oir lives. It is amazing how much stuff we have in our homes. We are only earthly vessels, made of clay or of glass, easily to break and shatter. And we have a secure place to store things in heaven, a safe box “where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.” South Africa teaches us that nothing is secured, that if it can be moved, it will be stolen.

From the life of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, we have this description of his conversion: “When Ignatius reflected on worldly thoughts, he felt intense pleasure; but when he gave them up out of weariness, he felt dry and depressed. Yet when he thought of living the rigorous sort of life he knew the saints had lived, he not only experienced pleasure when he actually thought about it, but even after he dismissed these thoughts, he still experienced great joy. Yet he did not pay attention to this, nor did he appreciate it until one day, in a moment of insight, he began to marvel at the difference. Then he understood his experience: thoughts of one kind left him sad, the others full of joy.” Things of this world are not fulfilling. We are made for more.

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Teach us to pray

Have you ever been jealous of someone else’s ability to pray? I’ve been a few times, when I have witnessed holy people praying. The same happened to Jesus’ disciples. They have seen him praying early in the morning, spending the whole night in prayer, immersing himself in his relationship with his Father God. They found it very difficult to imitate him. They couldn’t wake up in the morning, they fell asleep during the night, or they got distracted looking at rich people putting money into the treasury of the temple. They really wanted to learn how to pray properly; they were attracted to Jesus’ prayer life.

One of Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, just as John taught his disciples. There was a bit of rivalry between Jesus and John’s disciples. They were the two most popular prophets at that time. The disciple took advantage of this fact to make this important request. He went to the source of prayer, to the best teacher, to the professor’s chair. We too ask Jesus to teach us how to talk with him, how to relate to him, how to connect with him. It is a petition made directly to him. All the saints learned from him. We go to him with the same holy envy of this disciple.

It is a deeper petition than we think. If we learn how to pray, how to access Jesus’ heart, we will be very powerful in love. It is what people in love want to achieve with the person they love: how to get through, how to reach the other’s heart, how to unlock the mysteries of their love. We forget that human love is a reflection of divine love. We too want to get closer to Jesus and we don’t know how to do it.

We need to acknowledge that we don’t know how to pray. We are still at the beginning of our prayer life. We are like little children who are learning how to talk; only their mothers understand them. We just babble. We don’t really understand what we are doing ourselves. Prayer needs time and practice, like everything else that is worthwhile. Like learning to play the piano or a new language. A lot of time, the more the merrier. We need to waste time with Jesus, to spend time with him, to wait for him to teach us.

What was Jesus’ lesson? The Our Father. It is the prayer of the children of God. Jesus taught us to pray like children. What are the main characteristics of children’s prayer: they ask with faith and perseverance. Once I asked a boy who was leaving the chapel: What did you tell Jesus? He answered me: I asked for something. This is the language of children: asking for things. They are little, they have nothing and they need everything. The same applies to us in front of God. He has all the riches we need. And all we need to do is to ask. He has told us so: “Ask and it will be given to you.” Children ask with confidence, knowing that their parents can give them what they want. God can give us what we need and he knows what we need. This trust leads to perseverance. They say that the average petition of a child to achieve what he wants is by asking four times. We need to be persistent with our petitions. Sometimes God waits to make sure that we want and need what we ask for. The more we ask the more we desire it. The delay increases our desires. The best way to achieve what we want is through Mary. She knows how to ask her son.

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Martha and Mary

Bethany is only two miles from Jerusalem. Jesus used to stay there when he came to the holy city, to find a peaceful place where he could rest and spend time with his friends. Beth means home, an appropriate name for a place where Jesus felt at ease. Jesus used to love to go to Bethany, to spend time with Martha, Mary and Lazarus. As a human being he needed friends. He loved his friends and tried to drop in and stay with them. We too are social beings, and we need friends, people who can support us and share things with us. A friend is a treasure. We need to look after them and give them time. We normally spread our faith to our friends. Christianity began and grew mainly through friendship.

Saint Josemaría used to call the tabernacle Bethany, where Jesus could find a place to rest in his wanderings among humans. We too need a tabernacle, where we can find a refuge, a place to leave our troubles alongside Jesus. Our heart also should be like Bethany, a place to spend time with Jesus, where we can offer him hospitality. We are waiting for him to come to visit us, whenever he wants to, always ready for his visit. Our feelings are always variable, but Jesus’ presence gives us stability.

Jesus is our friend. He will always be there, wherever we go. We move, we change, we go through different stages in life, but Jesus is always there if we let him be. He should be our best friend, not just one among many. We can ask ourselves, do we welcome Jesus into our humble abode, like in Bethany. What sort of friendship do we have with Jesus? I never forget the answer a girl gave me when I asked her if Jesus was her best friend: “father, Jesus is much more than my best friend.”

Martha was the eldest and when Jesus arrived she wanted to have everything ready for him. Jesus came with his apostles and there were lots of things to worry about. Mary the younger in the family was a bit of a dreamer. While Martha was taking care of the meal, setting the table, Mary was at Jesus’ feet, drinking in his words. Martha couldn’t follow what Jesus was saying, coming in and out of the kitchen. She could only pick up few phrases here and there. Slowly she became upset, looking at her sister doing nothing, and sending her some looks like darts, to see if she could give her a hand. It reached a moment when she exploded and instead of talking to her sister, she complained to Jesus: Could you tell my lazy sister to give me a hand, please? Jesus, smiling at her, reminded her not to get distracted with too many things, that there is only one important thing: Jesus. No matter what we do, Jesus has to have a central place in our lives.

Traditionally Martha is the icon of the active life and Mary the contemplative one. We distinguish them, we even oppose one to the other, but they should be together in our lives. We should be a bit of Martha and a bit of Mary. There was always a tension between both sisters, and it is a healthy tension, because one cannot take over the other. The balance is always difficult to achieve, but we need to try to reach what Saint Josemaría calls unity of life. We cannot be schizophrenics, to have a double life. We need to unite work and prayer, a material and spiritual life, the inside and the outside.

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The Good Samaritan

It all started with a question a lawyer asked, to catch Jesus, to see how wise he was. He wasn’t sincerely interested in the answer. As a good lawyer he wanted to score a point. But it was a good question, maybe the most important question in our lives: What do I have to do to go to heaven? Or in a more personal way: God, are you happy with me? Jesus took advantage of this pretentious lawyer to remind us of the law inscribed in our hearts: we are created to love God and our neighbor. This is the way for us to be happy and to make it to heaven. If we are not happy, it means that we are not loving God enough. The more we love God, the happier we are. We don’t normally look at things in this way. This should have been the question the lawyer asked: What can I do to love God more? The media tries to convince us that to follow a religion means a list of negative things. But the summary of the law of God is a positive thing: to love God and other people. The do’s and don’t’s spring from this great reality. We should avoid anything that goes against our love for God, whatever can offend him.

Then the lawyer asked a second question, not happy with the result of his first one: Who is my neighbour? It was a debatable question among the doctors of the law. It had become a bit legalistic, sometimes trying to get away from true charity. It was a question of who was really my neighbour: my relatives, or my friends too, or even anybody? The more people become my neighbour, the more people I have to love. It is a good question for us too, one that we need to ask ourselves from time to time. Who is my neighbour? Who are the people God has placed close to me? We normally try to exclude some people, especially the people we don’t like.

Thanks to this question Jesus gave us a great parable, very much part of our Christian make up. Only Jesus can bring something beautiful from a silly lawyer. This is the heart of the Gospel, where we are recognised as true Christians. The expression “Good Samaritan” is part of our language, somebody who does something for others without expecting anything back in return. Are we truly a Good Samaritan? We are normally very utilitarian, constantly thinking about what people can do for us. What can I get from this situation? We need to change our outlook. Instead, we need to ask ourselves, What can I do for others without getting anything back?

We criticise the priest and the Levite who pass by to the other side of the road. But, what would happen to us if one night we find someone lying on the road. Would we stop? We will have plenty of excuses to keep going. It could be a set up to robb us, he must be drunk, I am in a hurry, I have enough problems of my own. Recently I was talking with a parishioner who had an accident at night and nobody was stopping to help her. She had to stand in the middle of the road to stop a car.

Who is the real Samaritan for us? It is Jesus. We are robbed of our dignity and left half dead when we sin. We fall down and our soul half dies. Jesus comes with oil and wine, with the Sacraments, and heals our wounds. We need first to recognise what it is that is robbing us of our heavenly treasures, and secondly how we can let Jesus heal us, to bring us back to the eternal inn.

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72 Disciples

Today our Lord is sending us ahead of him. That’s the reason why we are here on earth. We are here for a purpose. We didn’t choose to be here. He chose us before the beginning of the world. This is our time here. We only have few years to go. Let us take advantage of the time we have and don’t get distracted or side tracked. Last week Jesus told us to follow him. Now he tells us: Go! His command is imperative. We need to discover what he wants us to do. We need to discover our mission mainly through prayer, but we need to be open to other suggestions, not to be afraid of what he is going to tell us. Our main purpose for us here is to find our way to heaven and bring with us the people God has placed close to us. We cannot leave anybody behind.

Jesus, aside from sending us ahead of him, also gives us some instructions on our way. Firstly, very important: pray. “The harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few; so ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers for his harvest.” There is plenty of work in the harvest of the Lord. There are always jobs to be done; no unemployment. The salary is very high: 100% and eternal life. God knows that there is a scarcity of hands on the plough. It is his problem, not ours. We shouldn’t worry. All we need to do is pray. It is as simple as that. Secondly: things are going to be difficult. “I am sending you like lambs among wolves.” It is a great comparison. Sometimes we feel like this. He is telling us that he knows that the environment is not Christian, but he is with us. It is not going to be easy, but we have his power. God is with us in spite of everything. Sometimes it is as if the devil is winning.

The third one is very wise: travel light. “Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals.” Don’t let things slow you down. People walking the Camino to Santiago learn that you don’t need to take many things with you. Society is trying to create more necessities for us, to get us to spend more and to bog us down with inessentials. Whatever you buy you need to carry with you. Eventually you will be stuck on the road. The fourth instruction gives us a sense of urgency. “And greet no one along the way.” But Jesus, I have a friend in this village, I want to say hello. You cannot. But if he finds out I went through his town, I’ll be in big trouble. No way. Why? There is no time. We only have few years to go. We need to get rid of whatever is distracting us from God, whatever is separating us from others.

The 72 came back full of joy and enthusiasm: “Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name.” The power of God. If we are good instruments in his hands we will be amazed at his grace. But Jesus tried to redirect their energy towards what it is important: “Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” There are two books in eternity: the book of good deeds and the book of bad deeds. We need to make sure our names are written in the right one. Heaven is what matters.

If Jesus had 72 true disciples here on earth now, he could change the world again. We can be one of them. It is up to us. Mary, Queen of the apostles, our Queen and Mother, helps us to decide accordingly.

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