October 22, 2026
Thursday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 476
Reading 1
Brothers and sisters:
I kneel before the Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory
to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self,
and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
that you, rooted and grounded in love,
may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones
what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to accomplish far more than all we
ask or imagine,
by the power at work within us,
to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus
to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 33:1-2,
4-5, 11-12, 18-19
R. (5b) The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
Exult, you just, in the LORD;
praise from the upright is fitting.
Give thanks to the LORD on the harp;
with the ten-stringed lyre chant his praises.
R. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
For upright is the word of the LORD,
and all his works are trustworthy.
He loves justice and right;
of the kindness of the LORD the earth is full.
R. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
But the plan of the LORD stands forever;
the design of his heart, through all generations.
Blessed the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people he has chosen for his own inheritance.
R. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
But see, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him,
upon those who hope for his kindness,
To deliver them from death
and preserve them in spite of famine.
R. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I consider all things so much rubbish
that I may gain Christ and be found in him.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus said to his disciples:
“I have come to set the earth on fire,
and how I wish it were already blazing!
There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,
and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!
Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?
No, I tell you, but rather division.
From now on a household of five will be divided,
three against two and two against three;
a father will be divided against his son
and a son against his father,
a mother against her daughter
and a daughter against her mother,
a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102226.cfm
Commentary on
Ephesians 3:14-21
Today we have a lovely prayer of Paul for the Church or
churches to whom he is writing. The passage has been summarised in the New
American Bible thusly (edited):
- The
Apostle prays that those he is addressing may, like the rest of the
Church, deepen their understanding of God’s plan of salvation in Christ.
- It
is a plan that affects the whole universe (v 15)…
- …with
the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s love in Christ (v
18), or possibly the universe in all its dimensions.
- The
Apostle prays that they may perceive the redemptive love of Christ for
them and be completely immersed in the fullness of God (v 19).
- The
prayer concludes with a doxology to God (vv 20-21).
It is a prayer Paul makes kneeling (“…I bow my knees”) in
the presence of the Father. We are accustomed to kneeling during prayer, but in
Paul’s time it was normal to stand, so Paul’s posture here expresses a very
special submission and reverence.
Paul says that God is:
…the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on
earth takes its name.
There is a play here on the Greek words for ‘father’ (pater)
and ‘family’ (patria). Patria is used for any social group
descended from a common ancestor. Hence, God is the common ancestor of every
single person and every community. This we affirm every time we pray “Our
Father” in the Lord’s Prayer. We do not address God as strangers or as
outsiders would, but rather as One who is very close to us in a real family
sense.
Let us lay out more diagrammatically the petitions that Paul
makes on behalf of the churches:
I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, [the
Father] may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with
power through his Spirit and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through
faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have
the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length
and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so
that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Let us note some of the things that Paul mentions here.
There is a prayer that our “inner being”, i.e. our ‘inner self’ grow
strong through the power of the Spirit within us. He prays that, through our
opening up to God in faith, Christ may be truly present and active deep within
our being. As Paul said of himself on another occasion:
…it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives
in me. (Gal 2:20)
We, too, want to be able to say this about ourselves
individually and collectively. With the mutual relationship that faith opens
up, we are to be “rooted and grounded in love”. This is the agape-love
which must be the main driving force of all that we say and do.
In language reminiscent of the Stoics, Paul prays that we
may have what may be termed almost a cosmic grasp of the role of the Christ:
…that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the
saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth…
Paul uses it to suggest the cosmic function of Christ in the
rebirth of the world. It could be referring to the size of the mystery of
salvation, or preferably to Christ’s universal love on which (in the next
verse) the mystery depends. Christ becomes the Omega Point, to which all
creation and creativity is ordered.
In a paradoxical phrase, Paul prays that the Christians will
come:
…to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge…
Paul desires that the Ephesians (and we) come to know the
love of Christ for us and for the whole world. It is the infinite love of God,
expressed by Jesus dying on the cross as the uttermost proof of love:
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life
for one’s friends. (John 15:13)
On this side of death, we will never get beyond grasping
this love in a clouded mirror. We live in the “Cloud of Unknowing” and yet,
from time to time, we can be given glimpses of understanding. It is something
that the mystics have experienced, but in a way that they cannot put into
words.
With this understanding—imperfect though it be—Paul prays
that Christians:
…may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Christ, who himself is filled with the divine life, fills Christians
with it. The Church itself, as part of the Body of Christ, in a sense completes
the fullness of the whole Christ. Christians enter both the Church and the new
cosmos, which they help to build, and which is the fullness of the total
Christ.
Faith, knowledge and understanding, love and fullness—these
are the gifts which Paul prays for in the communities. Surely we, too, need to
make this prayer our own also.
Finally, Paul concludes with a prayer of praise to God
through Christ Jesus. He praises the God whose power at work in us can achieve
more than we could ever ask for or even dream of. In one sense, Paul can point
to the rapid growth of the churches, in spite of so many difficulties, as a
convincing sign of this. And when we see the vastness of the Church, today we
see the truth of these words. They are the basis of our hope for continuing
growth in our own church.
Lastly, he prays for God to be glorified through Christ in
every generation in the Church. The greater glory of God is, at bottom, the essence
of all living, and everything we do is to be directed to this—faith and love
leading to praise.
Commentary on Luke
12:49-53
We have some passionate and disturbing words from Jesus
today. First, he expresses his deep desire to cast fire on the earth. In the
imagery of the Old Testament, fire is a symbol of God’s powerful presence. We
remember Moses at the burning bush, the pillar of fire that accompanied the
Israelites by night as they wandered through the desert to the promised land,
as well as the tongues of fire that hovered over the disciples at Pentecost.
It is this Pentecostal fire that burns men’s hearts and
draws them to change the direction of their lives. For Jesus’ wish to be
fulfilled, we have to play our part in helping to spread some of that fire of
God’s love everywhere.
Second, Jesus expresses a longing for his ‘baptism’ to be
accomplished. Baptism here refers to his immersion in the terrible suffering
and death by which we will be liberated. In fact, the ritual of baptism, where
the person to be baptised was immersed in the baptismal pool, was seen as a
parallel to Jesus’ going down into death and emerging to the new life of the
resurrection. It is about this that Paul speaks.
Third, Jesus says he has come not to bring peace, but
division on the earth. At first sight, this is a hard saying and it does not
make any sense. Is Jesus not the Prince of Peace? Did Jesus not say at the Last
Supper that he was giving his peace to his disciples, a peace that the world
could not give and that no one could take away? Did he not say:
Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy
burdens, and I will give you rest. (Matt 11:28)
Was not the final greeting of the Risen Christ to his
disciples in the upper room:
Peace be with you. (John 20:21)
Yes, but he also warned his disciples that, after he was
gone, they could expect a rough ride. They would be hauled before rulers and
governors; they would be beaten and jailed and put to death. People would think
they were doing well in ridding the world of them. In that sense, Jesus was
certainly not going to bring peace. And, by the time this Gospel was written,
Jesus’ prophecy had been well borne out—and there was a lot more to come.
The break-up of families, father against mother, parents
against children, in-laws against in-laws, was unfortunately only too common as
one or more members in a family decided to follow Christ and be baptised. These
must have been very painful experiences which no one wanted. Anyone who has
studied the history of the Church, all the way back to its beginning and in
many places throughout the world, knows how many families were torn apart by
their accepting Christianity. In the Gospel, we see it in the story of the
blind man who attached himself to Jesus and whose parents, terrified of the
authorities, wanted to have nothing to do with it. It is surely an image which
was quite familiar to converts in the early, not to mention the later, Church.
Jesus had warned that those who wanted to follow him had to
be ready, if necessary, to leave home and family and enter into a new family of
brothers and sisters. To follow the way of truth and love, of freedom and
justice is always going to arouse the hostility of those who feel threatened by
goodness.
But is it right to break up one’s family? We might counter
by asking which is the more loving thing to do: to be true to one’s convictions
and one’s integrity, or to compromise them for the sake of a merely external
peace?
The one who leaves a family for the sake of Christ and the
gospel shows a greater love for one’s family and will never cease to love them,
no matter how viciously they may react to the choice the Christian has felt it
necessary to make. In the long run, truth and love will prevail—they must.
Finally, hostility, division and persecution, provided the
Christian is not directly responsible, does not take away the peace that Jesus
spoke about. On the contrary, it is only by being true to one’s convictions and
one’s integrity, whatever the price that has to be paid, that peace can be
experienced.
https://sacredspace.com/commentary
Thursday,
October 22, 2026
Ordinary
Time
Opening Prayer
Almighty and everlasting God, our source of power
and inspiration, give us strength and joy in serving you as followers of
Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever
and ever. Amen.
Gospel Reading - Luke 12: 49-53
Jesus said to his disciples: 'I have
come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were blazing already!
There is a baptism I must still receive, and what
constraint I am under until it is completed! 'Do you suppose that I am here to
bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on, a
household of five will be divided: three against two and two against three;
father opposed to son, son to father, mother to daughter, daughter to mother,
mother-in-law to daughter-in-law, daughter-in-law to mother-in-law.'
Reflection
The Gospel today gives us some phrases
of Jesus. The first one on bringing fire to the earth is only in Luke’s Gospel.
The others have more or less parallel phrases in Matthew. This leads us to the
problem of the origin of the composition of these two Gospels for which much
ink has already been used throughout the past two centuries. This problem will
only be solved fully when we will be able to speak with Matthew and Luke, after
our resurrection.
•
Luke 12: 49-50: Jesus has come to bring fire on
earth. “I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were blazing
already! There is a baptism I must still receive, and what constraint I am
under until it is completed!” The image of fire is frequently mentioned in the
Bible and does not have just one meaning. It could be the image of devastation
and punishment, but it can also be the image of purification and illumination
(Is 1: 25; Zc 13: 9). It can also express protection as it appears in Isaiah:
“Should you pass through fire, you will not suffer” (Is 43: 2). John the
Baptist baptized with water, but after him Jesus baptized with fire (Lk 3: 16).
Here the image of fire is associated to the action of the Holy Spirit who
descends at Pentecost as the image of the tongues of fire (Ac 2: 2-4). Images
and symbols never have an obligatory sense, totally defined, which does not
allow some divergence. In this case it would be neither image nor symbol. It is
proper to the symbol to arouse the imagination of the listeners and onlookers.
Leaving freedom to the listeners, the image of fire combined with the image of
baptism indicates the direction toward which Jesus wants people to turn their
imagination. Baptism is associated with the water and it is always the
expression of a commitment. At another point, Baptism appears like the symbol
of the commitment of Jesus with his Passion: “Can you be baptized with the
baptism with which I will be baptized?” (Mc 10: 38-39).
•
Luke 12: 51-53: Jesus has come to bring
division. Jesus always speaks of peace (Mt 5: 9; Mk 9: 50; Lk 1: 79; 10: 5; 19:
38; 24: 36; Jn 14: 27; 16: 33; 20: 21.26). So how can we understand the phrase
in today’s Gospel which seems to say the contrary? “Do you think that I am here
to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you , but rather division.” This
affirmation does not mean that Jesus himself is in favor of division. No! Jesus
did not want division. But the announcement of truth that Jesus of Nazareth was
the Messiah becomes a reason for much division among the Jews. In the same
family or community, some were in favor and others were radically against. In
this sense, the Good News of Jesus was really a source of division, a “sign of
contradiction” (Lk 2: 34), or as Jesus said: “from now on a household will be
divided, father opposed to son, son to father, mother to daughter, daughter to
mother, mother-in-law to daughterin-law, daughter-in-law to mother-in-law.”
That is what was happening in the families and in the communities Much division
and much discussion as a consequence of the Good News among the Jews of that
time, with some accepting and others denying. The same thing could be applied
to the announcement of fraternity as a supreme value of humanity living
together. Not all agreed with this announcement because they preferred to
maintain their privileges. And for this reason, they were not afraid to
persecute those who announced sharing and fraternity. This was the division
which arose which was at the origin of the Passion and death of Jesus. Jesus
wants the union of all in truth (cf. Jn 17: 17-23). It is like this even now.
Many times where the Church is renewed, the call of the Good News becomes a
“sign of contradiction” and division. Persons who lived very comfortably for
years in the routine of their Christian life do not want to be disturbed or
bothered by the “innovations” of Vatican Council II. Disturbed by changes, they
use all their intelligence to find arguments to defend their own opinions and
to condemn the changes, considering them contrary to what they think is their
true faith.
Personal Questions
•
Seeking union Jesus was the cause of division.
Does this happen with you today?
•
How do I react before the changes in the Church?
Concluding Prayer
Shout for joy, you upright; praise comes well from the
honest. Give thanks to Yahweh on the lyre, play for Him on the ten-stringed
lyre. (Ps 33: 1-2)
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