Ephesians 3:14-21 / Luke 12:49-53
The difference between school and life is that school teaches you lessons and then gives you a test; life would give you a test and then you learn the lessons.
While in school, life seems so simplistic and idealistic and we are quite optimistic in our outlook on life.
But the reality sinks in when we face the hard knocks and hard landings in life and we become realistic and stoic and maybe even get rather pessimistic about life.
In the gospel, Jesus was as realistic as He could be when He said to His disciples: I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were blazing already.
And He even added on by saying: There is a baptism I must still receive, and how great is my distress till it is over.
If what Jesus said is not alarming, then at least it should be puzzling, because isn't He the Prince of Peace who came to bring people together and to be reconciled with God?
The truth of what Jesus is saying is that life is not as simple and ideal and perfect as we would like to imagine it to be.
His fire of truth burns away our false perceptions of life and of the world and puts us to the reality test.
But it is with faith that we will learn the lessons of life. And it is also with faith that, as the 1st reading puts it, we will be able to grasp the length and breadth, the height and the depth of the meaning of life.
Faith will help us understand what school has taught us and what life has shown us. But it is with the love of Jesus that we will know what all that means to us.