Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.  In today's gospel, we hear our Lord say some things that are a bit jarring and seem opposed to other things that He said. "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword." Matthew 10:34. Someone might object to that. They might say, "Well, but Jesus, you said blessed are the peacemakers." Matthew 5:9. "You said that as we enter someone's house we should say we should wish it peace." Matthew 10:12-13. Your chosen apostle St. Paul says in Romans 12:18, "If possible insofar as it depends on you be at peace with everyone." Even the angels at your birth, what did they sing? They sang, "Peace to men of goodwill." Luke 2:14.
 So what does the Lord mean when He says He didn't come to bring peace? Well, remember what He also said to the disciples at the last supper. He said, "Peace I leave you my peace I give you not as the world gives do I give to you." John 14:27. The peace which Christ offers is not the world's peace. The peace of Christ is friendship with God. It's fellowship with God. It's reconciliation with the Lord. Earthly peace is a wonderful and a beautiful thing, but it's not the priority of the gospel. The priority of the gospel is finding peace with God, finding peace with yourself, and then learning to extend that peace to others.
 In the gospel, Christ is saying that He came to put our allegiances in the right order. Our first allegiance is to God. When He says that He had come to bring a sword instead of peace, He's alluding to Old Testament passages like Sirach 39:30, where it speaks of a sword punishing the ungodly with destruction. Also, Isaiah 66:16, where we read this: "For by fire will the Lord execute judgment and by His sword upon all flesh and those slain by the Lord shall be many." And also Micah 7:6-7, which says, "The son treats the father with contempt. The daughter rises up against her mother. The daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man's enemies are the men of his own house. But as for me I will look to the Lord. I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me."  The sharing of the gospel divides people. It divides those who embrace it from those who reject it. Responses to it vary from full reception to lukewarm acceptance to hostile rejection. St. Thomas Aquinas said, "Quid quid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur," which means, "Whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver." Some will receive the gospel. They will welcome the Savior Jesus Christ into their lives with open arms. Others with hearts closed will reject and fight against Him. Some of us have been called religious fanatics by our family and friends simply because we pray the Rosary each day, or because we go to Mass on Sunday, or maybe even during the week sometimes, or because we support pro-life causes, or because we strive to live chastely and don't embrace the sexual aberrations of the current Western culture, or simply because we like to speak about God or Jesus to other people.
 Remember what some of our Lord's relatives said to Him in  Mark 3:21. They said, "He is out of his mind." Mark 3:21. They say the same thing about us too. We are fools for Christ, as St. Paul would say. 1 Corinthians 4:10. Regarding peace, St. John Chrysostom, commenting on today's passage, said that peace is only attained “when disease is removed, when the cancer is cut away. Only with such radical surgery,” he says, “is it possible for heaven to be reunited to earth. The incurable part must be amputated.” It means, quite simply, that we have to work to cut all sin out of our lives. Sin in our behaviors and sin in our beliefs as well. Not believing what Christ and His Church teach.
 The peace that we aim for, first and foremost, is the peace of Christ, not the world's peace. Jesus then says, "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me." Matthew 10:37. When am I loving others more than Christ? It's when I compromise my faith or hide it out of embarrassment, or when I prefer to offend God rather than offend someone else, when I say that something or someone else is more important than my witness to Christ. St. John says in 1 John 5:3, "This is the love of God that we keep His commandments and His commandments are not burdensome," he adds.
 Love is not rooted in feelings here; it's rooted in doing what's right, whether I feel like doing it or whether I don't feel like doing it. So again, effectively speaking, I put God first by avoiding sin. Let's say my family comes down. They're in town for the weekend. None of them go to Mass on Sunday, right? So Sunday comes, I decide to stay home with them or go to breakfast with them instead of going to Mass. I've effectively put them ahead of God. Or if I'm invited to a bachelor party from my friend who's about to get married, and knowing these guys, I'm pretty sure that they're going to have some kind of a striptease act or something along those lines. But I don't want to offend my friends, right? So I go anyway and put myself in a very near occasion of sin. I've effectively put my friends ahead of God. Or let's say that I fudge or skirt some of the Church's moral teachings because they don't agree with my lifestyle, right? I've effectively put myself first and God somewhere further down the list.
 As a priest, I run into a number of people who do that, sadly. Some of them even go to church regularly. My affections for other people or for certain things may be stronger than my affections for the Lord, but what's essential is that my choices line up with God's will. I can always ask in prayer for the Lord to strengthen my desire for spiritual things and my affective love for Him, but I can't always rely on my desires and my feelings to guide me. And if I have a decent spiritual compass and I begin to put others and other things before God, the Holy Spirit will convict me of this, and He'll take away God's peace, too, if I continue down those paths.
 Instead, the Lord says to me, "No, faith first. Faith first. Not family, not friends, not comforts, not privileges, not applause, not profits. No, faith first." Jesus even promises that it will be difficult. He says, "Whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me." Matthew 10:38.  But He also promises not only His peace, but also tremendous rewards for those who are faithful to Him. "He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it." Matthew 10:39. Here, our Lord is basically saying that if we seek happiness in life by pursuing our own self-centered interests and likes, we will not find fulfillment. Only by centering ourselves on Jesus and giving our lives to Him will we find lasting fulfillment. And in doing so, we will become our true selves as well. We will become who God created us to be, and we will become a tremendous blessing to those around us.  Let's ask Our Lady for the grace to always put our faith first and our relationship with Jesus first. And let's ask Her as well for the grace to have more of an affective love for God, who is love, and who loves us always, infinitely and unconditionally, even when we are not loving Him.  Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.