Christ foretells that he will suffer death on a cross before the
human race is inflamed by the fire of this love; for it was by his
most holy passion that he won so great a gift for humankind, and it
is chiefly the recollection of his passion that kindles the flame of
love in Christian hearts.
“There is a baptism which I must undergo.” By divine decree there remains for me the duty of receiving a baptism of blood, that is, of being bathed, soaked upon the cross not in water but in my own blood poured out to redeem the whole world.
“And what constraint I am under until that has been achieved”—until my passion is love and I say: It is accomplished. For Christ was impelled incessantly by the love within him.
The way to attain the perfection of divine love is then stated.
“Do you think that I have come to bring peace on earth?”
In other words: Do not imagine that I have come to offer people a
sensual, worldly, and unruly peace that will enable them to be
united in their vices and achieve earthly prosperity.
“No, I tell you, I have not come to offer that kind of peace, but rather division”—a good, healthy kind of division, physical as well as spiritual.
Love for God and desire for inner peace will set those who believe
in me at odds with wicked men and women, and make them part company
with those who would turn them from their course of spiritual
progress and from the purity of divine love, or who attempt to
hinder them.
Good, interior, spiritual peace consists in the repose of the mind
in God, and in a rightly ordered harmony. To bestow this peace was
the chief reason for Christ's coming. This inner peace flows from
love.
It is an unassailable joy of the mind in God, and it is called peace
of heart. It is the beginning and a kind of foretaste of the peace
of the saints in heaven—the peace of eternity.
On Luke's Gospel: Opera omnia XII, 72-74)
Denis the Carthusian (1408-1471), whose family
name was van Leeuwen, was educated at Cologne and entered the
Charterhouse at Roermund in 1423. His biblical commentaries cover
both Old and New Testaments
He was strongly influenced by the writings of Pseudo-Denis and was
himself a mystic: he was afterwards to be known as “Doctor
Ecstaticus.”
He also took a practical interest in ecclesiastical discipline and
in 1451 accompanied Nicholas of Cusa on a mission of Church reform
and preached a crusade with him
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Journey with the Fathers
Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels
- Year C, pp. 106-107.
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