Pope Leo XIV accepts the Medal of St. Augustine from Fr. Robert P. Hagan, O.S.A., prior provincial of the Augustinian Province of St. Thomas of Villanova (R) and Fr. Joseph Farrell, O.S.A., vicar general of the Order of St. Augustine (L) in a video released on Aug. 28, 2025. / Credit: Screenshot from the YouTube page of the Augustinian Province of St. Thomas of Villanova

Pope Leo XIV addresses a delegation of political representatives and civic leaders from the Diocese of Créteil, France, on Aug. 28, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

Pope Leo XIV prays during his Wednesday general audience on Aug. 13, 2025, in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

Friends, for this Twenty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time, I want to talk to you about a very important theme—namely, pride and its antidote. I don’t know a spiritual teacher who doesn’t say that the fundamental problem we have is pride; it is the most deadly of the deadly sins. The opposite of pride is humility—and whereas the proud person is caved in around himself, the humble person leaves the black hole of self-regard and enters into reality. In our Gospel for today, Jesus tells us a great story that’s right to this point.

Friends, I want to focus this week on the second reading, which is from the marvelous Letter to the Hebrews. It addresses a very important and very controversial topic—namely, the divine punishment. You would be hard-pressed to say that this is not a motif in the Bible. That’s simply not the case; in fact, it’s a rather major motif. How do we make sense of this theme of divine punishment without falling back into a terrible view of God as an arbitrary, capricious tyrant? This little passage from Hebrews gives us the interpretive key.

Friends, the title of my ministry, Word on Fire, came from our Gospel for today. Jesus says to his disciples, “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” This is not the lighting of a cozy campfire. This is closer to, if you want, Sodom and Gomorrah—to fire and brimstone. It is a dangerous and divisive fire. Christ is the light of the world, the divine luminosity—but to the degree that we are still in darkness, we will experience that light as something difficult, off-putting, even torturous.