¶ Jesus' Desire for Divine Fire
Welcome to Slaking Thirst, a podcast that's all about bringing the thirst deep within our hearts for love and communion to the heart of Christ, a divine heart, who is seeking our love and communion in return. The hope is that the two thirsts would meet, and both thirsts would be slaked. Well friends, good morning. It's good to be with you on this Feast of Our Lady, Mount Carmel.
So, I want to start with this question, this observation. What is Jesus' desire for his bride, the church? It's quite simple. His desire is to see his bride. immaculatized, his bride utterly aflame, utterly engulfed, utterly consumed with divine fire, with his divine love. Here's a scene. I think it's in Luke's Gospel where the disciples are making their way through pagan territory into a town.
And there's a city that won't accept them, that won't let them come in. And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, right, the sons of thunder, they ask Jesus, Lord, do you want us to call down fire upon them to consume them? Like, whoa, boys, right? Jesus does not say no. He doesn't say no. Later on, he says, I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already blazing.
Picture for a moment Jesus' sacred heart. Bring to mind every image of the sacred heart you've ever seen. Go back to the visions of St. Margaret Mary. His heart, she says, is... A flame. It's this supernova of divine life, fire, glory, blazing. Inferno of mercy. That's what his heart is. Every saint who's ever seen a sacred heart, that's all they can say. It's ablaze. What is his desire? His desire is to consume the whole world. The whole...
cosmos to fill you and me with his divine fire. Like what began on Pentecost, he wants to accomplish in every single nook and cranny of creation. Everything will be... divinized, filled with fire at the end of time, right? To impregnate all of creation, especially your humanity and my humanity, with his own fire, the fire of the Sacred Heart.
¶ The Non-Consuming Nature of God's Fire
All this talk of fire, though. I don't know about you, last time I had a bonfire, it didn't bode well for the logs that I tossed in the fire. The logs got tossed in the fire and they were gone by the morning. The fire consumed it. Doesn't fire mean destruction? No, it doesn't. Not at least in this case where we're talking about the fire of God's love. This is why this Old Testament reading, this scene of Moses and the burning bush, Exodus 3.14, this is why this is so significant.
for our understanding of God's desire, his heart, right? This is a scene we're so familiar with. Moses, he draws near to the bush, and it's a strange bush because it is on fire, but he says, but it's not... Consumed. It's not consumed. There is a burning bush of the Old Testament, and there's a burning bush of the New Testament. The burning bush of the New Testament is Our Lady.
Our Lady, she's the burning bush of the New Testament, just like she is the temple of the New Testament, just like she's the ark of the new covenant, right? She is the burning bush of the New Testament. whose womb at the Annunciation was filled with divine fire, right? Who is the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life? How does it appear in Pentecost? In tongues as of fire. The Holy Spirit comes down upon Our Lady.
fills her womb with this divine blaze. Go to the book of Revelation. Our Lady appears in the heavens. I saw a lady clothed with the sun. Or think of Our Lady in Guadalupe. How does she appear? Clothed with the sun. You know what the sun is? This goes back to my homily two weeks ago on Sundays. But do you know what the sun is? The sun is a gigantic fireball.
That's so hot and so huge, we have to be 93 million miles away from it so that we're not incinerated. And here's Mary, just clothed with the sun, like I'm wearing these vestments. radiant, filled with divine fire. She is ablaze. What I so love about this image of Our Lady as the burning bush of the New Testament, the burning bush of the Old Testament, is how this...
¶ Defeating the Lie of Diminishment
It exposes the lie that the enemy has been whispering to humanity from the very beginning. This lie that says, if you allow the Lord to draw close. You will be compromised. If you allow him near, if you allow him in, you will be compromised. That there's this inverse relationship between humanity and divinity, and that's just not true. The enemy whispers,
endlessly to our hearts. If you let him get close, you will be burned up. You will be incinerated. You will be compromised. You will be lessened. Your life will be less. No, the truth is you and I, if we allow him deeper and deeper, closer and closer, like Our Lady, we are radiant, transformed, set on fire. You're not consumed. You become overflowing with superabundance. What was St. Irenaeus' line? The glory of God is man fully alive. He wants to see us fully alive. Think back. What was it?
2017, 2018, the Notre Dame fire in Paris. It's one of those years. 2017, 2018, I remember watching that when that cathedral was burning, right? Notre Dame, Our Lady, when that cathedral was engulfed in flames. It's been rebuilt now, thanks be to God. But when it was engulfed in flames, the tower collapsing, I remember watching that and thinking, This is the diabolical mockery of Jesus' desire for his bride, the church. This is the diabolical mockery. Look, that was fire that was consuming.
Jesus' desire is to consume the world with a fire that doesn't consume. Think of what happens at the Easter vigil. The fire is blessed outside the church, then it's brought into the church, and the flame gets spread person to person. The church is filled with fire. So friends, on this feast day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, We're reminded again of the burning bush of the New Testament and just the truth that...
By allowing him close, by allowing him in, by allowing him nearer and nearer, we are not compromised. We are not bushes that get burnt up. We're bushes that get radiant on fire but not consumed. I want to end with this. This is a... These are lines that Pope Benedict said to young people at World Youth Day years ago, and it's all in the same vein. He asked the young people this question. Young people, old people, everyone in between. All right. He says,
enter fully into our lives if we open ourselves totally to him? Are we not afraid that he might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up being diminished and deprived of our freedom? It seems that way, right? What does the Pope say? No. If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing.
Nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free and beautiful and great. No, he says, only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship. Do we experience beauty and liberation? And so, he says, today, with great strength and great conviction on the basis...
of long personal experience of life. I say to you, dear young people, middle-aged people, old people, everyone in between, I added that last part. I say to you, do not be afraid of Christ. Don't be afraid of the fire. Don't be afraid of letting him in. He takes nothing away, and he gives everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, he says, open, open wide. the doors to Christ, and you will find true life. Amen.
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