The Fire That Makes Life Truly Life
Julián Carrón - “I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already burning!”
In this unique statement by Jesus, we see all the passion He has for us. Why? Because what we need—as we prayed in the Psalm—is precisely to see our “I” constantly burning.
What is our “self”? It is our desire, our need for fulfillment, which always runs the risk of settling for less than what it truly aspires to. And when that happens, life sinks and becomes even more unbearable. For this reason, the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel are a testimony to His esteem and passion for our lives—so that they do not decay to the point of becoming unlivable.
How can we forget the words of Fr. Giussani: “I wish for myself and for you that we may never be at peace, never again at peace!” Who heard these words of Fr. Giussani as a threat? Rather, they were a sign of that “fever for life” he wanted to communicate to us—something he hoped we would never lose. Because if life dies, if desire dies, if need dies, if we settle for less, if that “fire” goes out—then everything truly becomes unbearable.
For this reason, Jesus insists: “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but division.” Why does division arise? As the Pope said in his homily this morning,
“The world accustoms us to exchange peace for comfort, good for tranquility.”
Among the many episodes in the Gospel, few are as revealing of Jesus’ passion for us—especially in the face of our tendency to be satisfied with too little—as the one following the multiplication of the loaves. He responded to a need, multiplied the loaves, and the people recognized Him! They even wanted to proclaim Him king because He had satisfied their need.
But what passion did Jesus have for each of those people—so much so that, after fulfilling their immediate need, He raised the bar and said:“Man does not live on bread alone.”
This will not be enough for your life to be truly life—for your life to be full, to match the scale of your desire, your need for fulfillment. In fact: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you will not have life.”
And there, at that moment, the division occurred: the vast majority left. It was too much. Too much to demand that only by eating His flesh and drinking His blood would they have life. Too much to claim that He alone could fulfill their desire for life.
So Jesus did not spare even His closest friends the question:“Do you also want to leave?”
There is nothing more challenging to us than this promise of life. So we can understand when He says:“From now on…”—after being faced with this announcement, this Presence that brings fire and a radical demand—“from now on, if there are five people in a family, they will be divided: three against two and two against three; they will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
Why will they be divided? Because not everyone is willing to accept the challenge He brings to life. Many prefer a quiet, comfortable life rather than a full one. He, on the other hand—because of His passion for each one of us—never gives up. He never settles for less. He never stops loving us, raising the bar higher and higher.
To the point that, in order to be faithful to this passion, He desired a “baptism”—nothing less than giving His life for us, even unto death. Why did He end up on the cross?
Because this attraction He placed before everyone—so corresponding to the expectation of our hearts, so unique in its estimation of our greatness—is dangerous to those who want to flatten us, to those who want us to be satisfied with less. As we saw in the prophet Jeremiah, Jesus’ destiny and Jeremiah’s are united. Both are “done away with” because their refusal to give in is too threatening to the powers that be.
Therefore, if we truly want to be friends with one another, we can do nothing other than what we heard in the Letter to the Hebrews:“Surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders us and persevere in the race we are running, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”
We have no other task as friends than to witness to one another the welcome of this “fire” that He brings—this gamble He continually throws before us—so we can truly be companions in Destiny. We must not be content with less than what our hearts desire, or we will not be friends worthy of that desire.
As Jesus shows us—and it is paradoxical—if He did not bet everything, if He did not respond to the full expectation placed in our hearts, He would not be credible. If He did not face the heart of the matter—“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world if he loses himself?”—
if He did not fulfill the very promise of life He Himself instilled within us, faith would lose its reasonableness.
Let us ask the Lord to open us to recognize the One who came precisely to bring that “fire”—to ignite our very selves with that “fever of life” that makes life truly life.
20th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C | Notes from the Homily of Fr. Julián Carrón - August 17, 2025
(First Reading: Jer 38:4–6, 8–10; Psalm 39 (40); Second Reading: Heb 12:1–4; Gospel: Lk 12:49–53)
