The Internal Flame!

Thursday, November 13, 2025

Wis 7:22b-8:1; Lk 17:20-25

Today’s Gospel highlights the nature of God’s Kingdom. 

When Jesus talks about the arrival of God’s Kingdom, he is, in fact, offering correctives to dispel the dominant misconceptions about it. 

1. Jesus cautions about externalizing the Kingdom. In other words, the Kingdom of God is not a spectacle that we may look for outside of us. Hence, any move to externalize God’s Kingdom amounts either to a reductivistic outlook on it or a disowning of the moral claims it makes on us. It may not be a heavy wind but a gentle breeze that Prophet Elijah experienced (1 Kings 19:11-13).

2. Jesus says, ‘The Kingdom of God is among you.’ Hence, the proper place of God’s Kingdom, its origin, and its flourishing is our heart, which is also the epicentre of morality for Jesus. Hence, the Kingdom of God manifests its presence through the transformation it achieves in an individual who then is shaped more by God’s love, mercy, justice, and peace. 

3. For this reason, when we pray, ‘Thy Kingdom come,’ we are not asking God to do something great or sensational but praying that God may kindle the divine fire within us so that we may respond to the promptings of the Spirit of God to embrace change. Thus, when we understand the true meaning of God’s Kingdom, we will discover that it is a call to lead authentic lives.

In sum, Jesus wants us to realize that the Kingdom of God is not an observable external reality but our response to God’s abiding internal transformation. 

Let us pray that our lives may radiate the Kingdom among us through all that God wants us to be and become.

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar