I Have Come to Set the Earth on Fire

It has been a very trying time the last few weeks. We recently remembered the attack on the World Trade Center. Many people are still mourning the loss of loved ones from twenty-four years ago. Not even three weeks ago we mourned the loss of life of two children and the wounding of many more in a Catholic church in Minneapolis. Then, to top it all off, we had the assassination of Charlie Kirk at a college in Utah.

I’ve already written about the shooting in Minneapolis and the attack on the World Trade Center. While all of these events are horrific, the assassination of Charlie Kirk seems to have triggered a response that has cast a pall over, not just the United States, but countries in Europe. Unfortunately, the response has not all been one of horror.

For those who don’t know, Charlie Kirk was a thirty-one year old Evangelical Christian married to a Catholic woman. They were parents to two children.

Charlie dropped out of college at age eighteen and founded Turning Point USA. Turning Point USA states its mission is:

“to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government.”

Many who did not like Charlie described him as hateful and divisive. He spoke to young people at colleges, as he was doing the day he was killed, stressing his faith in Jesus Christ, the sanctity of marriage and the importance of having children.

Comments about the assassin have ranged from he must have a mental disability to he was justified in killing someone who is hateful and equivalent to Hitler.

Why is there such a strong divide between those who believe the killer was justified or mentally deranged, seeing Charlie as divisive and hateful, and those who see Charlie as a loving husband, father and Christian promoting gospel values?

I directed a parish retreat three days after Charlie’s assassination. The retreat, planned several months before the killing, used the themes of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius as an outline. The theme of the retreat was Hope. When I selected the readings, I was not envisioning the retreat as going the way I presented it, following all that had happened recently.

Originally my plan was to direct people on the need to strengthen themselves in the virtue of Hope for their own benefit. The retreat was being sponsored in part by the parish Senior Joy ministry, a group for older members of the parish who may need to keep their hope up as they deal with the realities of old age and the acceptance of the inevitable death that comes to us all. Instead, my mind was filled with thoughts of the terrible attack on the hope of the country with the events of the last quarter century.

As people of faith, we know there is evil in the world and there is a face to that evil. It is the same one who tempted Eve and altered God’s plan for all of His creation. The evil one promotes division and rejection of God’s love. He tempted the leaders of the Jews to put the Son of Man to death. I stressed to those at the retreat that we are all called to be people in the world but not of the world.

I want to address those who thought Charlie Kirk was divisive and therefore deserved death. Charlie preached the gospel of the Lord. Not by quoting verses from scripture necessarily, but by declaring his faith and giving witness by his words and his actions to those who disagreed with him.

In a sense, Charlie Kirk was living his life the way Christ lived His:

“I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am constrained until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division; for henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against her mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” (Luke 12:49-53)

Jesus was not just some kind, soft-spoken prophet. He was and is the Lion of Judah. He came to defeat The Accuser, The Adversary, The Deceiver, The Father of Lies, The Evil One, The Tempter and The Thief. By His death and resurrection Christ defeated Satan. He opened the gates of Heaven that had been closed after the sin of Adam and Eve.

Jesus also recognized, however, that, while the evil one has been defeated he is not vanquished. He prayed for us to His Father:

I have given them your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. (John 17:14-16)

Charlie Kirk was a martyr. He died as a witness for Christ; for His truth. Let us all be willing to die for Christ. I am not saying we should seek martyrdom. Rather, we should recognize that we were not created to spend eternity in this world. We were created to spend eternity with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit in Heaven. Let us remember the embolism to the Our Father:

Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days, that, by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

May the soul of Charlie Kirk rest in peace. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.

 

Greg Gillen

qop-gg@sonic.net

September 15, 2025

© 2025 Greg Gillen

Scripture/Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition/Ignatius Press

Image Credit/www.ioes.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/sunlight-morning-smoke-fire-glow-burn-1356678-pxhere.com_-1024×632.jpg

/tpusa.com/about/