Homily

   
       
 
AUGUST 24, 2008
   


Dear friends,

On this Sunday’s Gospel Jesus is having an opinion poll. Jesus asks His disciples, point blank, “Who do people say that the son of man is?

”It seems that the apostles were not expecting to be asked more than to report what people were saying of him. They answered: "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

”But Jesus presses the point and asks a second question: “Who do you say that I am?"

The disciples are caught off guard. There is silence and they stand looking at each other. This time only Simon speaks out: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!”

To answer the first question it was only necessary to look around, to have listened to people’s opinions. But to answer the second question, it was necessary to look inside, to listen to a completely different voice, a voice that was not of flesh and blood but of the Father in heaven. Peter was enlightened from on high.

This is the first clear recognition of the true identity of Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospels. The first public act of faith in Christ in history! “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!”

Peter was able, through God’s special grace, to go behind what his eyes were seeing and proclaimed that the man in front of him was more than a man, more than a prophet: he was God Himself.

Jesus, in turn, gazing at the man in front of him, goes beyond the failures of the man, beyond appearances and sees what faith will make of this man: a rock: “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church.

”When we recognize Jesus as our savior, we don’t lose, but we find our real self which is hidden event to ourselves.

In the Bible when someone receives an important mission, his/her name is changed. A new name stands for a special mission, for a new person. Simon becomes Cephas, or Peter: “rock.” The true rock, the “cornerstone” is, and remains, Jesus himself. But it is necessary for a sign to represent him, a sign that makes Christ visible and efficacious in history. And this sign is Peter and, after him, his vicar, the Pope, successor of Peter, as head of the college of apostles.

It is a very strange name since we know that “Rock” in the Scriptures is another name for God, whose fidelity to us is unshakable as a rock.

The image of the “rock” conveys stability, strength and permanence. It suggests that Peter and the church built on his faith will be around for a long time.

In many respects Peter is an unlikely symbol of stability.

While he was one of the first disciples called and served as the spokesman for the group, Peter is also the exemplar of “little faith” of last Sunday’s Gospel. In the Gospel of next Sunday he will be called “Satan” by Jesus and he will eventually deny Jesus three times at His trial.

What apparently would transform Peter was his encounter with the risen Jesus. That encounter made Peter into a fearless preacher of the Gospel and a martyr willing to die for his faith in Jesus. In light of the Easter event, then, Peter became an exemplar of the forgiven sinner and the rock on which Christ’s church will stand.

If God could make the impulsive, wavering Simon into Peter the rock of stability, then surely God can transform any of us.

In changing the name of Simon Jesus was giving him a new title.

Why did Jesus choose Peter as the leader of his Church?

Was it because Peter loved Jesus most? If love and loyalty were the basis for the office of leader, it would have gone to the unnamed "disciple whom Jesus loved," of John’s Gospel.

Jesus gave the position of leadership to Peter whose love was imperfect; whose impetuosity and weakness made the title Jesus gave him, the Rock, ironic; as ironic as call­ing a 350-pound heavyweight "Slim."

Before he could become the Church's leader, Peter had to experience his weakness. As long as Peter thought he was strong, he was no use as a leader. He had to be­come aware of his own weakness; then, and only then, Simon would be "the Rock," because he would trust not in his own strength but in the power of God.

What was rocklike in Peter was not strength of character but faith, that is, Peter's trust in Jesus whose strength over­comes human weakness. This is the rock on which Jesus builds his Church.

Peter's office of leader and chief pastor continues in the Church. It is good to show reverence and affection for our Pope. The name means: ”Father”. I am not comfortable with the title “Holy Fa­ther”. Catholics who put him on a pedestal or raise him above the rest of humankind are no friends of the pope. Such adulation creates expectations that no pope, being hu­man, can possibly fulfill. When exaggerated expectations are disappointed, there is disillusionment and even anger. We have seen too much of this anger in the Church in recent years. In the past he was called “servant of the servants of God”.

Today we pray, in a very special way for the Church of China that, because of this faith had to go underground and has accepted to be persecuted, rather than to build on a different rock. The fidelity to the Pope or Rome, to the church built on the faith of Peter, has been paid by the Chinese.