Sunday 17 August 2025
Our Lady Immaculate
Today’s homily was one of those which made me wonder if I understood anything. One of those Gospel passages that contradicts everything I thought I knew.
It came from Luke 12: 49-53.
On the surface this was Jesus announcing his plans to mess things up. To divide families, and bring fire. Even the mothers-in-law were in for it.
But for all my confusion, I do know that if you interpret the Gospel to be nasty or vindictive it means you’re reading it wrong.
So we dig a little deeper.
As Canon P explained, love is not the same as being nice. And as Aquinas famously put it, love is “willing the good of the other”. And that doesn’t always mean telling them what they want to hear.
It’s telling a child no. It is doing what is right rather than what’s easy. It is making the more difficult decision, knowing it’s the best.
All of which can be difficult. But our failure at this, prefering instead to be “nice”, creates all sorts of problems.
I know I struggle with a need to please people. To get people to like me means I sometimes accept things that cause me distress or harm. Needing to be liked can lead to some stupid and unlikeable decisions.
So, as the gospel put it, Jesus came to cause this disruption. To tell the world what it needed to hear. Not to make nice and just let people be people.
Love can be nice, but it’s not niceness full stop. It’s truth. And that’s very different. And at times, something we “nice” people avoid at all costs. But propritising a need to be thought of as kind, is nothing more than egotism.
So to embody love means being honest. Not hurtful, but truthful and authentic.
The Holy Father also invited people not to confuse “peace with comfort” or “good with tranquility.” He recalled that Christ came to bring fire to the earth, but “not the fire of weapons or words that reduce others to ashes,” but the “fire of love, which humbles itself and serves.”
All of this reminds us that being or doing good does not always receive a positive response. On the contrary, because its beauty at times annoys those who do not welcome it, one can end up encountering harsh opposition, even insolence and oppression. Acting in truth has its cost, because there are those in the world who choose lies, and the devil, who takes advantage of the situation, often seeks to block the actions of good people.
Jesus, however, invites us with his help not to give in and conform ourselves to this mentality, but to continue to act for our good and the good of all, even those who make us suffer. He invites us not to respond to insolence with vengeance, but to remain faithful to the truth in love. The martyrs witnessed to this by shedding their blood for their faith. We, too, can imitate their example even in different circumstances and ways.
Now I understand it a little better.