The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to accept the desire to live in the fullness of God’s love.
Fire in our lives
The reading from the Letter to the Ephesians is a prayer for the fullness of God for the readers.
* [3:14–21] 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 (Eph 3:15) with the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s love in Christ (Eph 3:18) 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 (Eph 3:19). The prayer concludes with a doxology to God (Eph 3:20–21).1
Psalm 33 praises the greatness and goodness of God.
* [Psalm 33] A hymn in which the just are invited (Ps 33:1–3) to praise God, who by a mere word (Ps 33:4–5) created the three-tiered universe of the heavens, the cosmic waters, and the earth (Ps 33:6–9). Human words, in contrast, effect nothing (Ps 33:10–11). The greatness of human beings consists in God’s choosing them as a special people and their faithful response (Ps 33:12–22).2
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus draws attention to the division that accompanies our choice to be on fire with Him.
* [12:49–53] Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom is a refining and purifying fire. His message that meets with acceptance or rejection will be a source of conflict and dissension even within families.3
Carol Zuegner comments that Peace on earth is difficult and hard. We are divided. To live out God’s work and to commit to a faith that does justice will require facing adversity, facing anguish, facing division.
Jesus did not shy away from or sugar-coat the truth. Healing the divisions is not easy. We have to be ready for division and we have to stand with and for those whose voices aren’t heard. We have to remember that God is with us. The first reading from Ephesians offers a good prayer for me today.
“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.”4
Don Schwager quotes “The fire of the Gospel and being baptized in the Holy Spirit,” by Cyril of Alexandria (376-444 AD).
"We affirm that the fire that Christ sent out is for humanity's salvation and profit. May God grant that all our hearts be full of this. The fire is the saving message of the Gospel and the power of its commandments. We were cold and dead because of sin and in ignorance of him who by nature is truly God. The gospel ignites all of us on earth to a life of piety and makes us fervent in spirit, according to the expression of blessed Paul (Romans 12:11). Besides this, we are also made partakers of the Holy Spirit, who is like fire within us. We have been baptized with fire and the Holy Spirit. We have learned the way from what Christ says to us. Listen to his words: 'Truly I say to you, that except a man be born of water and spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God' (John 3:5). It is the divinely inspired Scripture's custom to give the name of fire sometimes to the divine and sacred words and to the efficacy and power which is by the Holy Spirit by which we are made fervent in spirit." (excerpt from COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 94)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Ephesians 3:14-21 comments in whatever way God stirs our heart and mind toward serving him, whatever he calls us to, he is prepared to give us the strength and the boldness and the opportunity to do it.
You can’t ask too much of God! He will help you and guide you. Begin the conversation with him and aim high. Remember that St. Paul is on his knees asking the Father to empower you as you work out the details of his purposes (Ephesians 3:14). While you might not end up with the “pony” you’re asking for, God can and will do far more through you than all you ask or imagine. “Lord, thank you for your plans for me. Open my eyes to see how you want to use me today.”6
Friar Jude Winkler finds a prayer and a hymn in the text from Ephesians. In the fire of enthusiasm and warmth, “no good deed goes unpunished.” Friar Jude reminds us that our own choices of lifestyle is the basis of our judgement.
Franciscan Media Saint of the Day shares highlights from the life of Saint John Paul II.
Cynthia Bourgeault does an excellent job of describing the spiritual dark nights that both Thomas Keating and John of the Cross (1542–1591) put so beautifully into poetry. The sense of joyful, flowing oneness that so marks the final years of Thomas Keating’s life didn’t “just happen.” For most of us—including for Thomas himself—it comes at the end of a painful season of stripping and purification that has classically been called “the Dark Night of the Spirit.”
The second dark night comes much later in the journey and entails a much more radical and painful stripping that cuts to the very roots of the “false self system,” overturning the fundamental psychological and neurological hardwiring that drives the illusion of a separate selfhood. Its painful cost is that everything goes dark—“for the duration”—as we become increasingly unable to steer by the old binary operating system in our brains that always wound up turning God into an object (albeit a holy object) and in fact prioritized our experience of God over direct, unmediated union. Until the new operating system fills in, we are rather helpless, like chickens in molt, unable either to fly or lay eggs.7
The fire of our life in relationship with Jesus drives our openness to accept the fullness of God, endure division, and sustain us in our dark nights of the soul.
References
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