Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Sts. Peter & Paul, Apostles

1st Reading: Acts 12:1-11
2nd Reading: 2 Tim 4:6-8, 17-18
Gospel: Mt 16:13-19

Jesus came to Caesarea Philippi. He asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" They said, "For some of them you are John the Baptist, for others Elijah or Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

Jesus asked them, "But you, who do you say I am?" Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." Jesus replied, "It is well for you, Simon Barjona, for it is not flesh or blood that has revealed this to you but my Father in heaven.

And now I say to you: You are Peter (or Rock) and on this rock I will build my Church; and never will the powers of death overcome it.
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and what you unbind on earth shall be unbound in heaven."

Commentary

"FOR some of them you are John the Baptist, for others Elijah or Jeremiah or one of the prophets." In other words, the people see you through the eyes of the past; in fact they think you are the past; all those names they mentioned are the names of dead people. That's not unusual. Come to think of it, it's what we do most of the time: we interpret the present not as something new but as something old. I shiver a little now when I realize it.

But for one moment that heavy stone-the dead past-moves aside a fraction of an inch and Peter sees Jesus as "the one who is to come," the future, the Messiah.

Could we say that there are two kinds of recognition: 1. when you check and are satisfied that something is just as you have always thought it to be; and 2. when something confronts you in that painfully familiar way of dragging you out of your rut and setting you naked in some new situation. Both are "re-cognition": knowing again. In the first case it's a repeat of the past, it's a refusal of life; in the second, it's the repeated call to be a living being.

Peter had that moment of grace to see Jesus as God's new deed. It is on that faith that the community of the faithful is built.

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