When I was in college, I heard a homily in which the priest challenged us to come up with a political philosophy using only the words of Christ from the Gospels. Later that week in my political science class, the cheeky professor who was also at that Mass told us what the priest had said, and added that the first thing that came to her mind were our Lord’s words from today’s Gospel, or their more dramatic form recorded by St. Matthew: “I came not to bring peace, but a sword.”

            Her point was not just that the priest had a reading of the Scriptures that was colored by his own political commitments, but that Christ’s mission was not, after all, to found a new political kingdom. This is precisely the mistake the Jews make when they expect a political Messiah: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”, the Apostles are still asking when He is about to ascend into Heaven.

            Of course, Christ does not desire division in families, in communities, and especially within His Body, the Church. So, what does He mean here, when He says that He will divide sons against fathers and mothers against daughters? Christ’s words remind us that, as great as the Christian family is, and as important as it is in God’s plan, its importance is relative to a more important goal. The family is not an end in itself, but a means chosen by God to work out His plan.

            “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” When you live the Christian faith with zeal, you will make people uncomfortable. When we think of the saints, we often think of the comfort and consolation people experienced in their presence. But depending on where we are in life, the encounter with a saint can also be an unsettling experience.

            Graham Greene was, in his day, the most famous and successful novelist in the English-speaking world. In addition to his tragic and comic writings, he had intrigued the British public by his conversion to Catholicism. Many of Greene’s works explore the nature of faith amidst the ambiguities of the modern world. They are serious works of literature that touch on profound themes of faith – very different than today’s “Christian fiction,” which is almost universally of absolutely no literary merit.

            What most people did not know, though, is that the very publically Catholic Greene led a different private life. He was a drunk and a philanderer. “If I have a soul at all,” Greene once wrote to his wife, “it is a small, dirty beast.” He made no attempt to hide his affair with his mistress from his wife. They remained married on principle, and little more.

            In 1949, Greene and his mistress went to meet someone just as famous as himself, and even more mysterious: Padre Pio. At the time, the man we now know as a saint, through extremely famous and the subject of incredible popular devotion, was believed by the Vatican to be a fraud. Padre Pio claimed to be the first man since Saint Francis six hundred years before to have the stigmata – the wounds of Christ’s passion on his hands, feet, and side. The doubters, including the Vatican investigators, thought they were self-inflicted. (And although Padre Pio was canonized as a saint in 2002, no definitive judgement about the supernatural nature of his wounds has ever been made.)

            Greene was always one to support the underdog, and from years spent in Mexico had a love and admiration for the popular devotion of simple people. He also had depicted rogue and morally complicated priests in his novels. So, he and Catherine Walston, his mistress, went to see Padre Pio. But since Padre Pio had been banned from offering Mass publicly, they awoke at five a.m. to witness his simple, private Mass at a small side altar, nestled in an alcove, in which Greene and Walston stood only six feet away. Greene watched as Padre Pio struggled to hide the mysterious wounds, seeing the blood “start up, dry, and then start up again, on his hands and feet.”

            After the Mass, Padre Pio sent a messenger to invite Greene and Walston to his room to talk. He was known to read souls, so maybe he sensed the morally complicated nature of the people so close to him as he made the Lord present on the altar. Greene, presented with this incredible opportunity, declined. Decades later he told his biographer, “I didn’t want to change my life by meeting a saint.”

            Like no other author, Graham Greene illuminates the anguish of the soul that struggles to believe. Clearly, he is no model of the Christian life. But at the same time, when it comes to what’s really at stake in this life, people like Graham Greene get it more than I do, more than you probably do. They understand what is in play. They understand the risk that comes from encountering God, that something powerfully other and awesomely different is before them. Some One is before us Who is much greater than any saint.

            “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” Christ asks you today: Are you willing to be set on fire? Are you willing to be transformed into the saint will bring consolation and joy into people’s lives, but who will also set others on edge? Saint Paul tells us today, “He endured such opposition from sinners, … that you may not grow weary and lose heart.” To live faithfully in the world is to be a sign of contradiction, knowing that our perseverance amidst division and opposition is sustained by His love and the confidence that the victory is already won.

            As we heard before Mass today, our parish is embarking on an important journey that will chart out the next few years of our parish’s life, discerning together how God wants us to set the world ablaze, to be baptized with the baptism for which He longs. We want to hear – through our interviews, focus groups, and surveys – how Christ has already set our parish ablaze, and how the fire is already catching in our families and communities, so that we can pour all the fuel possible onto that fire.

            We stand at an important crossroads. God has done amazing things with this parish, creating an oasis of Catholic family life and fidelity to the Gospel, surrounding us with “a great cloud of witnesses.” What does He want to do with that now? Are you willing to let your life be changed by encountering Him anew? Our parish has a mission that extends beyond these walls, that goes beyond just strengthening those who have already opted in to this life of Christian fidelity. I’m excited to discern God’s plan for us together, and to watch God work through us.

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne

XX Sunday through the Year, A.D. MMXXV