"Love follows knowledge."
"Beauty above all beauty!"
– St. Catherine of Siena

Sunday, August 14, 2022

Sunday Meditation: Coming to Set the World On Fire

 One could focus on the divisions in this passage, but I’m drawn to that opening image.

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."

Lk 12:49-53

 

 


St. Catherine of Siena has a similar image in one of her most famous quotes.

 

Is there a relationship between the two quotes?  Does Catherine have Jesus’s quote in mind?

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