Jesus said to his Apostles:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth.
I have come to bring not peace but the sword.
For I have come to set
a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s enemies will be those of his household.

“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

“Whoever receives you receives me,
and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet
will receive a prophet’s reward,
and whoever receives a righteous man
because he is righteous
will receive a righteous man’s reward.
And whoever gives only a cup of cold water
to one of these little ones to drink
because he is a disciple–
amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

When Jesus finished giving these commands to his Twelve disciples,
he went away from that place to teach and to preach in their towns.

Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.

This statement is one of Jesus’s hard sayings. It is sometimes really difficult to deal with the fact that being a faithful disciple might necessarily mean that you will bring division among the members of your family. But whom among us does not know this to be true. Pick a subject like abortion, and we all know that we have family members that will defend it. But we also know that we cannot call ourselves catholic and defend the killing of the most innocent among us for convenience.

So as hard as this saying is, it is perfectly accurate. What then are we to do when we are divided as such? Do we just sit back and watch our loved ones happily walk down the path to destruction, or do we stand next to them and show them the right way to go? We have to show them the right way, and we do that by living our faith, and by not ever making excuses for what we believe, and by not allowing our desire for peace to over-power our knowledge of the truth.

We must become beacons of righteousness to all of those around us. Bright lights of truth that makes clear to all that there is a right and a wrong way to live. That their is a way that leads to the greatest peace, and that we must all walk that way, in order to get to heaven and eternity with the lord.

Help us today lord to be strong in our faith, and to be that beacon on a hill that everyone will look to. When we are confronted by family that thinks we are old, and stodgy, and out of touch, let us not equivocate, amen.