When we consider the Christian life, we often think in positive terms: peace, light, joy, goodness, life. And yet, as the Scriptures remind us today, that Christian life must be lived in the midst of a world which is filled with more negative terms: division, distress, cruelty and death. The words of the Gospel may appear shocking to us: Jesus says that he comes to bring division, not peace, and this seems totally contrary to the message of the Gospel! And yet, Jesus is not announcing his desire of course he wants peace, not division but showing his understanding of the world in which we live. He is inviting us to weigh up the cost of the Kingdom, a cost he was willing to embrace: as the second reading tells us: Jesus, for the sake of the joy which was still in the future, endured the cross Whatever weighs us down, let us endure and persevere, so that the fire of Gods love may blaze over the whole earth.