Welcome to read homilies for the Sundays of
the year. These are sample homilies which you can read with devotion. You may
use them in your own homilies without asking my permission. You may also change
or edit these to fit them to your audience. A unique quality of these homilies
is that they are Christ-filled. From beginning to end they present to us some
aspect of Jesus so that beholding his glory we “are being transformed from
glory to glory into his very image” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NAB).
The Fire That Purifies Us
Fire has many uses. I have a list of 18 uses.
The most common in this list is cooking. We use fire to cook our food. We use
it also to give light, to produce heat or warmth, to purify metal, to join
metals, to destroy things, to produce a signal, to propel a mechanism, to protect
ourselves from wild animals, to preserve energy by trapping it as in a
charcoal, to torture, to kill, to clear areas for construction or
rehabilitation, to fertilize, to manage a landscape, to clear a filed for
planting, to drive vehicles, to produce electrical power.
There may be other uses not in that list. They
all tell us that fire is very useful.
There is another use not in that list which
most of us are not aware of. Fire is also used to baptize.
When we use or hear the word
"baptism" what comes immediately to our mind is water. Water is
poured over somebody or someone is immersed in water. We usually do not
associate baptism with fire. \
But the gospel reading today tells us of a
baptism by fire. We heard John the Baptist announcing, "He will baptize
you in the Holy Spirit and in fire" (Luke 3:16). He was referring to Jesus. He proclaimed that Jesus would baptize with
the Holy Spirit and with fire, in contrast to his baptism by water.
Jesus baptizes by fire He himself was baptized with fire when he
cried out on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken
me?" Here he was referring to that
unquenchable fire mentioned also by John the Baptist in our reading. Jesus entered
into that fire, was immersed in that fire for us so that we may no longer need
to be put there. Jesus redeemed us from that fire. And in order to redeem us
from that fire he had to go into that fire. It is like a fireman going into a
house blazing with fire in order to rescue its residents trapped there. This is
the baptism he referred to when he said, "I have a baptism to receive.
What anguish I feel till it is over" (Luke 12:50).
And Jesus is the he one, according to John
the Baptist, who baptizes with fire.
The fire that Jesus uses to baptize us with
is the agent that destroys the vestiges of sin in us. He said, "I have
come to light a fire on the earth. How I wish the blaze were ignited" (Luke
12:49). Fire produces warmth. The two disciples going to Emmaus felt this
warmth as they testified, "Were not our hearts burning inside us as he
talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?" (Luke
24:32).
Who produced this warmth inside their
hearts? It was Jesus by the fire that
accompanied his words as he explained the Scriptures to them.
Today Jesus still produces that fire which
gives warmth to our hearts by his words.
He baptizes us with fire through his words, purifying us from the
remains of sin in us.
During this last meal with his disciples
before he died he told them, "You are clean already , thanks to the word I
have spoken to you" (John 15:3). His words produces the fire that cleans
us of the dirt of sin in us. As we listen to Jesus like his disciples going to
Emmaus we feel a burning inside our hearts. This fire keeps us close to Jesus,
providing us with the strength and perseverance not only to live a truly
Christian life but also to be equipped with the proper attitudes to prepare for
his first and second coming.
Do you have a sin in your life which you
want to get rid of but you have not succeeded despite your trying and trying
again? Do you have unseemly tendencies which continue to bother you? a quick
temper? a tendency to use profane language? a proclivity to think about sexual
enjoyment outside of marriage? An attraction to a person of your sex? These are
vestiges of sin in your life waiting for purification by the baptism of fire
from Jesus. Turn to him and be baptized by fire.
This purification, as St. John of the Cross
taught, will be passive since you have tried your best but have failed. You
simply give in to the purification of Jesus . He purifies you by his word.
Listen to him. One word from him is enough to cure you of your vexatious malady.
As we pray just before communion, "just say the word and I shall be
healed." Let us bow down our heads to pray.
Jesus, you came to baptize us with fire.
You produce fire in our hearts to warm them so that we be purified of the
effects of sin in our lives. Thank you for this baptism of fire. Thank you for
going through yourself the baptism of unquenchable fire so that we may escape
the fires of hell. Amen.
