The Purifying Fire: Choosing Our Master, Embracing the Cost

Rom 6:19-23, Psalm: 1, Lk 12:49-53

My dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

The peace that the world offers is often a quiet compromise, a comfortable silence in the face of falsehood. But the peace that Christ brings is not like that. It is a peace purchased by fire, a unity forged in truth. Today’s readings present us with this stark and saving choice: the sterile emptiness of sin, or the purifying fire of God’s love, a fire that inevitably forces a decision in our lives.

Saint Paul, with the clarity of a spiritual accountant, lays out the balance sheet of the human soul. He speaks bluntly of two slaveries. Before grace, we presented the parts of our bodies as “slaves to impurity and lawlessness.” This led, quite simply, to “death.” It is a wage, something earned. But now, called to holiness, we are to present ourselves as “slaves to righteousness.” The result? “Sanctification,” and its end, “eternal life.” Paul’s conclusion is one of the most liberating in all Scripture: “For the wages of sin are death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Sin pays a wage we do not want; God gives a gift we do not deserve. The choice is between a paycheck of death and the unmerited gift of life.

This fundamental choice, however, is not without consequence in our daily lives. This is where the Lord’s words in the Gospel shock us. He says, “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” This is not the fire of destruction, but the fire of the Holy Spirit—the fire that purifies gold and burns away dross. It is the fire of divine love that judges all that is unloving. This fire necessarily brings division, even within the most intimate of human circles: “From now on a household of five will be divided… father against son… mother against daughter.”

Why? Because to choose the “gift of God” is to reject the “wages of sin.” When one family member embraces the demanding path of righteousness and another remains on the broad road of compromise, a tension arises. Christ’s message is so radical, His love so absolute, that it forces a crisis. It demands that we choose our ultimate allegiance. We cannot serve both God and the spirit of the world.

This is not a call to seek conflict, but a sober recognition that fidelity to the Gospel will, at times, make us a sign of contradiction. It is the fire that Saint John Paul II referred to when he said, “The Gospel is not a theory, but an event… a Person: Jesus Christ.” Encountering Him changes everything, including our relationships.

So, where is the comfort? It is in the gift. The struggle, the tension, the feeling of being at odds with the world is not a sign that we are failing. It can be a sign that we are choosing life. The fire that Christ kindles is the heat of divine love, burning away our attachments to sin so that we can be free to love God and neighbor fully. The division He speaks of is the painful but necessary separation of light from darkness.

Let us ask for the courage today to choose our master wisely. Let us embrace the purifying fire of the Holy Spirit, even when it demands difficult choices. For it is this fire that leads us through the temporary divisions of this world to the ultimate unity of eternal life, the imperishable gift won for us by Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.