French-Iranian author pens front-page Gospel commentary for L’Osservatore Romano

August 13, 2025

For the second time this summer, he Vatican newspaper has published a front-page commentary on the upcoming Sunday’s Gospel reading by Lila Azam Zanganeh, a French author whose parents were exiles from Iran.

Reflecting on Luke 12:49-53, in which Christ said that He came to cast fire upon the earth, Zanganeh wrote in the August 12 edition that “as Simeon predicted to Mary, Jesus is destined to be a sign of contradiction. And us? Do we conform to the dictates of this world? Do we yearn for a better world? Because this is the revolutionary message: burning down the old order will require tolerance and courage; it will reap division and sow chaos.”

Zanganeh, a non-Catholic who attends Mass regularly, added in her reflection:

“I am fire!” says Jesus. “I want to burn throughout the earth, setting the entire world ablaze with this love that burns in my most sacred heart! I do not want even a little of it to be lost!”

Every woman and every man, as well as all creatures and all things, are welcome to this banquet. “I will give myself over […] to solitude and defeat if only this fire will push men beyond the limits they have imposed on themselves, the boundaries within which they protect their own interests. How I long for them to escape from the personal worlds they have created and enter the Kingdom revealed by my Father!”

 

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Further information:

• Fuoco e disordine per qualcosa di più grande (L’Osservatore Romano, 8/12/25)
• French-Iranian author pens front-page Gospel commentary for L’Osservatore Romano (CWN, 7/9/25)