Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Year A) 2014

EXALTATION of the HOLY CROSS (Year A)

(Numbers 21: 4b-9; Philippians 2:6-11; Saint John 3:13-17)

 

Who can tell us about heaven?  Obviously not any Tom, Dick, or Harry. In the old dispensation Isaiah, Daniel, Baruch, and Enoch, for example, were among those said to have had heavenly visions; Elijah, we know, was taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot; while Moses spent forty days in the presence of  God on Mount Sinai before he was able to communicate God’s ‘teaching’ to Israel.  Such persons’ testimony we could understand; and we might even be prepared to give serious attention to some of the things they appreciated and found themselves able to say about heaven and heavenly matters.

Jesus, however, cannot be compared with such seers, visionaries, and prophets, even though specially chosen by God, because His association with, knowledge of, heaven is clearly something infinitely more than that learned in any of the relatively short-lived experiences or limited commissions accorded to all others:

No one has gone up to heaven except the One Who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.

Jesus claims to be unique not only because He had been in heaven and come down from heaven, but because – even while present among us on earth – He is in heaven.  Heaven is not a place, Jesus teaches us, but a state, a state of being in God’s immediate presence; and Jesus alone knew from experience – ever current and continuous – about heaven, because He always was, even when amongst us here on earth, in His Father’s presence, with His Father.  

In our Gospel reading today Nicodemus asked Jesus how men could possibly be born anew so as to be able to see the Kingdom of God.  Jesus told him how with the words:

Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.

Those words ‘the Son of Man must be lifted up’ make initial reference to Jesus  being ‘lifted up’ -- figuratively raised up heavenwards -- on the Cross of Calvary; before receiving their ultimate fulfilment in His going -- in most sublime and glorious reality -- to His Father at His Ascension.  And all this took place:

            So that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life

The bronze-serpent symbol showed as dead the death-bringing serpent. The Cross, however, Saint Paul tells us, shows One cursed freeing us from the curse of the Law:

Christ ransomed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree,’

teaching which is in accordance with the accusations levelled against Jesus by both Jewish Temple and religious authorities.

However, not ‘everyone who believes in Him’ as Saint Paul declares, would see one cursed by the Law in the figure of Christ on the Cross … only a very few former Jews, learned like Paul, would appreciate that aspect of Christ’s crucifixion and death.    The vast multitude of those coming to ‘believe in Him’ would see Him on the Cross as one abusively punished by the Roman State and grievously vilified by religious authorities, but in truth:

a Man commended by God with mighty deeds, wonders and signs which God worked through Him,   (Acts 2:22)

a Man God raised on the third day to Whom all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in Him will receive forgiveness of sins through His name.  (Acts 10: 40ss.)

And there, in the figure of a dead wrong-doer, they could, and indeed would, see Christ hanging and dying in place of and for themselves! 

Just as the desert symbol showed as dead the serpent lifted up on the pole, there on the Cross is shown One:

            Human in appearance, humbled and become obedient to death,

One inviting every self-accusing sinner to see himself there, before turning to Christ -- with true contrition and humble confidence – for healing and salvation.

The Cross of Christ is supremely worthy of exaltation because of the wondrous integrity of its signification whereby:

both the glory and the goodness of God are made manifest:

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might nor perish but might have eternal life;

as is also its invitation to us and all believers that we join together in thanking Him most fittingly.  To which end we are told by Saint Paul, again, that:

For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life, but each one in proper order: Christ the first-fruits; then, at His coming, those who belong to Christ; then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to His God and Father, when He has destroyed every sovereignty and every authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.  (1 Corinthians 15:22–25)

With those few last words we are enabled to recognize the truly sublime beauty and comprehensive majesty symbolized by the Exaltation of the Cross of Christ.  For there, Christ most assuredly reigns supreme as the Crucified One, Victor over sin and death; but for us, however, not in power and wrath triumphing over His enemies and trampling them down under His feet so much as graciously receiving the praise and thanksgiving of all His former enemies: sinners converted into supplicants, now looking up to the gaze of His compassionately lowered eyes, and, under the shelter of His outstretched arms, humbly praising and whole-heartedly loving and glorifying Him, the First-fruits and Lord of all creation, the Author of our salvation.

O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise, the glories of my God and King, the triumphs of His grace!

Dear People of God, in these days of conflict and confrontation it is most important for us who believe in Jesus -- in both His Person and in His Truth -- to know our measure of that Truth not only accurately but also lovingly, for Truth is not even really known, let alone loved, if its beauty is not sufficiently appreciated.

Accordingly, Mother Church, being the chosen instrument for God’s Holy Spirit at work on earth, must needs learn to give ever more faithful expression to both His Truth and His Love; not in separation -- for what God has joined man must not separate -- but as inseparably One: the loveableness and beauty of His Truth and the truthfulness and power of His Love; manifesting the inherent beauty of revealed Truth and proclaiming a Love inspired and sustained by such Truth.

To that end we, her children, must endeavour in our words of human sincerity and Catholic witness to show our appreciation of the beauty of the Truth we believe and live a Love in harmony with and expressive of that Truth, for the early Church spread so rapidly in the Roman Empire not so much by dint of doctrinal expositions, verbal conflicts, and scholarly triumphs, as by the totally overwhelming beauty and humble power of Christian witness: men and women, boys and girls, all embracing  and Exalting the Cross in their witness to Him who once hung thereon for their sake and was now looking down from heaven in compassionate love and comforting them in His world-wide embrace, as they sought to serve His glory by walking gladly in His footsteps along His way.

 

 

       

 

 

23rd Sunday Year A 2014

 23^rd. Sunday of Year (A)

(Ezekiel 33:7-9; Romans 13:8-10; Matthew 18:15-20)

When the harmony of human life was shattered by sin, that mutual love which fostered harmony was forgotten, as each individual became more independent of, less concerned with, his or her neighbour, brother or sister.  As a result when God asked Cain:

             Where is Abel your brother?

Cain’s reply was:

             I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?    (Genesis 4:9)

… the very prototype of all ancient and modern ‘couldn’t care less’ and ‘look after number one first of all’ attitudes!

But in the Kingdom of God, in the new, restored, human community -- inaugurated by the sacrifice, and configured to the teaching, of Our Blessed Lord -- such cold indifference has no legitimate place, as the Gospel reading for today shows:

Jesus said to His disciples: ‘If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.  If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.  If he does not listen, take one or two other along with you …..

Some ancient writers have understood that particular passage absolutely literally and proclaimed it as a serious commandment of the Lord in all its literal understanding; and indeed, they have declared with relentless logic that anyone sinned-against who would not go through such a procedure of confrontation, possibly with witnesses, was to be considered a much greater sinner than the one guilty of the original fault!

It is alas true, that even those who loved the Lord are found to have, at times, falsified His words unwittingly with an interpretation or accent of their own; as Father Faber laments in these famous verses of his:

For the love of God is broader Than the measure of our mind; 
And the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.

But we make His love too narrow By false limits of our own; 
And we magnify His strictness With a zeal He will not own.

Thanks to the work and achievement of modern scholarship we are now in a better position to understand, more accurately and more lovingly, that which previously our best virtue and most serious endeavours had only been able to hold-fast and hand-down literally and completely.

Today we know that St. Matthew had a particular community for which he wrote his Gospel memoirs of the Lord, and they are often referred to as Jewish Christians: former faithful followers of the Mosaic Law (as Jesus Himself had been brought up) and who had, through faith in Jesus as Son (of God) and Saviour, left the synagogue and gathered themselves into the Church in Jerusalem.

Now their background was far different from that of the pagans -- the rest of the world! -- for whom the letters of St. Paul and the Gospels of Mark, Luke and John were mainly addressed.   Had Jesus nothing to say to His own who had left all for Him, for those rejected by their former fellow Jews and perhaps not fully understood by their new-found fellow Christians?

Of course He had!  And St. John tells us in his Gospel (10:15s.) that Jesus taught:

I lay down My life for the sheep.  And I have other sheep that are not of this fold (to which He had devoted His own public ministry).  I must bring them also and they will listen to My voice (addressing them through My apostles),

and St. Matthew most earnestly desired to guide and sustain them in the ways of their chosen Lord and Saviour, their former fellow Jew, Jesus of Nazareth.

No other Gospel relates the words of Jesus read in today’s Gospel but the very clear teaching of Jesus which is the core of it can be seen in St. Luke’s Gospel:

If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.  And if he wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry’, you should forgive him. (17:3-4)

Matthew had been appointed as ‘watchman’ for his congregation, to serve and to help save them; and they had lived their whole lives till then faithfully obeying the Law of Moses and following traditional Jewish practices.  Matthew had good reason to think that  – with Paul – he  too ‘had the mind of Jesus’:

 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God.  And we speak about them not with words taught by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms.  For “who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to counsel him?” But we have the mind of Christ.   (1 Corinthians 12-16)

Even more, Matthew had the very words of Jesus explaining what he, imitating His Lord, was seeking to do for his congregation in our Gospel passage:

Jesus said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.  You pay tithes of mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law; judgment and mercy and fidelity.  But these you should have done without neglecting the others. (Matthew 23:23s.)

With such an example before him Matthew would not rubbish the life-background and devout upbringing of his community by trying to eradicate all traces of it ‘hook, line, and sinker’; he followed his Lord’s own example, these you should have done, without (necessarily) neglecting (what has formed your whole life in the former People of God). 

We can now turn our attention back to St. Paul, himself interpreting, presenting, the teaching of Jesus, handed down to us verbally by St. Luke:

If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.  And if he wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry’, you should forgive him.

This teaching, St. Paul – with the mind of Christ – himself handed on to his former pagan converts with no former Jewish faith or upbringing:

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,  bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.

Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.  Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness; rather expose them, for it is shameful even to mention the things done by them in secret. (Col. 3:12–13; Eph. 5:10-12)

How wonderful and instructive to be able to see Saint Matthew and Saint Paul both interpreting the ‘mind of Christ’ for those for whom the Spirit of Christ had established them both as watchmen! 

I would now like to dwell, just for a moment, on another point.   Jesus wants us to be concerned about, to love, both our fellows and the truth: He wants us to be concerned that, in the right way, we might ‘win back our brother’.

We are not to judge hastily; we are not to condemn; as our Blessed Lord commanded explicitly:

            Stop judging, that you may not be judged (Matthew 7:1),

and as His most faithful Apostle Paul re-iterated to the Romans (14:10):

Why then do you judge your brother? Or you, why do you look down on your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God.

Nor are we to make accusations freely and inconsiderately before other people, for the name given to Satan in the early Church was ‘The Accuser’ as we read in the book of Revelation (12:10):

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: Now have salvation and power come, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed. For the accuser of our brothers is cast out, who accuses them before our God day and night.

In cases of necessity we are to speak,  not secretly to ourselves – cherishing grudges or contempt – not openly to other people – slandering our neighbour, ruining his public reputation unnecessarily – but charitably to the offender himself; not, however, in order to accuse him, but only if such action might serve to help win him back to the right way:

We urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, cheer the fainthearted, support the weak, be patient with all,  (1 Thess. 5:14);   for:

Better is an open rebuke than a love that remains hidden (Proverbs 27:5).

Over and above all, however, in cases of necessity, we should recommend the whole affair, the offender, and ourselves the offended, to the Lord Who lived among us and, in the Spirit, knows us all most intimately: our actions and our intentions, our fears and sensitivities.

As St. Paul says (Romans 12:17-18):

Do not repay anyone evil for evil; be concerned for what is noble in the sight of all.  If possible, on your part, live at peace with all.

And here I would add myself: having committed everything to the Lord, live at peace yes; and above all at peace with, and in, yourself, your own heart and mind -- a skill, an art, not always easy but one which can be learned by those who are humble and patient enough.

Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good.  (Romans 12:21)

22nd Sunday of Year A 2014

 22^nd. Sunday of Year (A)

(Jeremiah 20:7-9; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 16:21-27)

The words of St. Paul in our second reading:

Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect,

are as pertinent and necessary today as they were at the very beginning of Christianity.  Then, many Christians were tempted, or driven by fear of the persecuting might of the Roman Empire, to conform to expected state-worship and thus save themselves from being reported as refusing to join in sacrifices to the traditional gods for the well-being of the Empire and the Emperor himself.

Likewise today, many wavering or nominal Catholics strive earnestly to keep in tune with the currently acceptable opinions and attitudes of society around them and today’s first reading from the Book of the prophet Jeremiah was one that would not have been comfortable hearing for them, since the impressions of ordinary non-religious people these days with regard the prophet Jeremiah – if, indeed, such people have any awareness of the prophet at all – derive from the cloud which hovers over his very name: for they regard a ‘Jeremiah’ as one who always  looks on the dark side of things, a harbinger of evil whose legacy is an ancient book called ‘Lamentations’, the like of which are now frequently termed as ‘Jeremiads’.

Occasional Catholics dare not resist such talk because it is so very easy for people who decry the prophet to then turn round and mock any who show him or his writings respect or reverence as being as weak personalities, fragile characters, unable to share and rub shoulders with others in the normal joys of life, unwilling to echo what others proclaim as being so very good in current thought and practices; and of being – to put it bluntly – real Jeremiah’s, full of despondency and complaints concerning modern society!

And so, although neither Jeremiah’s personal courage nor his fidelity to the office of prophet-in-Israel can ever be questioned let alone denied, nevertheless he seems condemned to permanently suffer under the common misapprehension that he was ‘a bit of a moaner’  even though today’s short first reading shows how far he was, in fact, from being such ‘a moaner’.  For, moaners are always complaining to others, constantly soliciting the sympathy of those around them, whereas Jeremiah only gave expression to his anxieties and fears in the secrecy of personal prayer to God.  Far from being public cries for human sympathy, his words were private and most humble acknowledgements before God alone about his deep fear of being personally unfit for the divine task being asked of him. 

Before men, as I have just said, Jeremiah showed himself as most courageous, one called to suffer much over many years as a servant of the Lord.  It is true that he publicly and frequently forecasted disaster, but that was the task given him by the Lord; the words and the warnings were of the Lord's commissioning not of Jeremiah’s choosing.

In one passage of his book he tells us (Jeremiah 15:16) just how much he loved the word of God:

Your words were found, and I ate them, Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts.

But, rejoicing so whole-heartedly in God's word, and having sincerely tried to fulfil the Lord’s command, Jeremiah was both puzzled at the reception given to his proclamation of the word of the Lord, and alarmed at the outcry it stirred up against him personally.  And so, in his private prayer to God he says:

Why is my pain perpetual and my wound incurable?   Will You surely be to me like an unreliable stream, as waters that fail? (15:18)

You will get a true idea and real awareness of his courage if you appreciate that what was happening to him was that which most people today fear above all: he was being mocked by his friends and acquaintances, opposed and rejected by the generality of his own people, and even hated by the religious authorities; all because he was proclaiming -- in the name of the Lord -- a message they refused to listen to and would not accept:

Whenever I speak, violence and outrage is my message; the word of the LORD has brought me derision and reproach all the day. 

Foreshadowing somewhat in that way the loneliness of our Blessed Lord on Calvary, he cried:

Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth!  (15:10)

Surely you will appreciate that only a man of strong spirit and great courage would have dared to repeatedly proclaim a message everyone considered unpatriotic and defeatist, a message no one wanted to hear and which brought down so great a measure of public opprobrium and personal contempt upon his head.

In his prayers he told the Lord how he had thought of keeping his mouth shut: why keep on shouting out what no one will accept; proclaiming what only brings public derision, and provokes -- what is much worse -- official suspicion and opposition bordering on hatred?

And yet, when he tried to keep silent he found that:

(His word) becomes like a fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary of holding it in, I cannot endure it. 

He was in a dilemma: for though he dreaded speaking out, yet he was finding it impossible to keep quiet.  He did indeed need to pray, to seek God's help and guidance, for only the Lord could appreciate and alleviate his situation.

Listen carefully to what the Lord said to him, however, because it may well surprise you, since it clearly shows that commiseration and sympathy are not always the true expression of divine love; being very human words indeed, they can easily be uttered for public hearing and the enhancement of the speaker’s personal reputation:

If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve Me; if you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be My spokesman. Let this people turn to you, but you must not turn to them.  (15:19)

Notice those words “If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve Me”.  In other words: repent, because at present you are not showing yourself as one worthy to serve Me; for, to serve Me -- even if it involves earthly suffering -- is a privilege.

We should also notice those other words:

 Let this people turn to you, but you must not turn to them.”

You must not try to make your preaching acceptable to them: My Word is My Word; it alone – in its full integrity -- is good for My people; don't you dare change or adapt it to their liking.

Yes, People of God, how important it is for Catholic Christians today to realise that God's message is not to be evaluated in accordance with its popularity: it is not to be adapted and changed in order to accommodate modern fancies, opinions, or desires.  Moreover, how necessary it is for us to calmly appreciate that it is always a supreme gift and privilege to serve God, and any suffering it might involve calls for a measure of divine strength and wisdom, gifts that God can give, and will give to those who turn to Him with a confidence and patience that Jeremiah had to learn, not, indeed, only for himself but also for our example and encouragement.

Sadly, the heroism of Jeremiah is confirmed today by too many Catholics who never stand up for Jesus and the Church, who shun all that calls for active involvement and personal risk on behalf of the Gospel in its confrontation with the world.  

However, today I want not so much to reprove bad Catholics as to encourage good ones, and in the Gospel reading there is much help for all who want to give of their best for God’s purposes.

There, Jesus began to speak to His disciples about His forthcoming condemnation and crucifixion, and we are told that:

Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, "God forbid Lord!  No such thing shall ever happen to You.”

Whereupon Jesus turned sharply on Peter saying:

Get behind Me, Satan! You are an obstacle to Me.  You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

To shake Peter out of his popular and comforting expectations He had to use harsh words, insisting most firmly that He Himself, and consequently His Church and His disciples, could in no way expect to live untroubled, peaceful, lives here in this wicked world:

You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.

Consequently, we who love Mother Church should not, must never, allow ourselves to be alarmed or become despondent when our Faith is attacked, mocked, denied, or simply ignored by the majority, for it happened to Jesus Himself (John 15:20s.):

Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.'  If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.

In our present trials here in the West, and in the repeated persecutions and murders of Catholics and Christians all over the world, we must always bear in mind Jesus' clear admonition:

Whoever wishes to come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.   For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.  What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?  For the Son of Man will come with His angels in His Father’s glory, and then He will repay everyone according to his conduct. 

People of God: have quiet confidence and firm trust in God, for you have all been personally called by the Father to serve His Son and to find salvation through Him and in Mother Church.  You have divine strength available to you, for you are in the Church where the full truth about Jesus, and all the grace and power of His Spirit, are at your disposal in her teaching, and through her sacraments and fellowship. However, you need to realize that you yourself have something to bring for the celebration and enjoyment of the inaugural feast of God’s glorious Kingdom … the wedding garment of faith.  Strength is not to be felt first; first comes your commitment of faith, in response to which is given such strength, joy, and peace as will enable you to bear up under your cross.   Try to realize and appreciate just how close you are to those very earliest Christians who suffered for the Faith in the pagan atmosphere of the all-conquering Roman Empire to whom Peter wrote words (1 Peter 4:12-14)  which apply personally to all of us today:

Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.  If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.    

                      

Twenty-first Sunday Year A 2014

Twenty-first Sunday, Year (A)

(Isaiah 22:19-23; Romans 11:33-36; Matthew 16:13-20)

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Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How inscrutable are His judgments and how unsearchable His ways!  For from Him and through Him and for Him are all things.  To Him be glory forever. Amen

That hymn of St Paul expresses beautifully the spirit which animates those who have a true appreciation of God.  And since the Incarnation and the Work of our Redemption are the greatest works of God’s inscrutable wisdom, how could it be that any mortal, of himself, should understand and recognize the dispositions of God in regard to the Christ, His Messiah?

When James and John asked Jesus -- through their mother (!) -- for positions one at His right hand and the other at His left in His Kingdom, Jesus answered that it was not for Him to give such places; rather, they belonged to whomsoever the Father had chosen for them.  Thus there was mystery even for Jesus as man.  And so, when in today’s Gospel reading we hear Him put first the question:

            Who do people say that the Son of Man is?

and then follow it with another:

            But who do you say that I am?

we can almost sense Him waiting to discover to whom -- if anyone – the Father  would give understanding of the mystery of His Person.  And then it was that Simon spoke up, giving voice to a wisdom that was not his own:

            You are the Christ the Son of the living God!

Who has known the mind of the Lord?  writes St. Paul; and Jesus, recognizing His man, so to speak, said in response to Simon’s assertion:

Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My heavenly Father.

And here we are at a supremely significant moment for the Church of Jesus: the Father has picked out, designated, Simon for special prominence in the proclamation of the truth about Jesus’ Person and in the continuance and extension of His ministry of saving grace; and Jesus, recognizing His Father’s intervention, adopts His Father’s choice by Himself appointing Simon as head of His Church by bestowing on him a new name, Peter, for that very purpose and function:

And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

The name Peter is a translation (through the Greek) of the Aramaic word ‘Kepha’, which is identical in form either as a personal name or as the word ‘rock’.

People of God, this is also a moment of great significance for each of us personally.   The Church, as a visible structure, is established, founded, upon Peter’s faith; and in like manner, as regards the interior and spiritual life of each one of us, the Kingdom of God is to be established in consequence of our act of faith.  The whole supernatural life-stream in us originates with our act of faith whereby we say ‘yes’ to God’s revelation, and to Mother Church’s proclamation, of Jesus.  Just as Mary said ‘yes’ to Gabriel’s message, so our ‘yes’ of faith in Jesus allows God’s saving grace to enter our lives and begin to totally transform and transfigure them.

But what kind of faith is this?  Earlier in St. Matthew’s Gospel (14:33) we were told how Our Lord walked on the waves of the storm-tossed lake towards His disciples labouring hard to keep their boat afloat, and how Peter had – at Jesus’ bidding – begun to walk from the boat towards Jesus, before hesitating and then beginning to sink.  Jesus rebuked Peter for his little faith as He raised him up, before they both got into the boat and the wind ceased.  Whereupon, we read that:

Those in the boat worshipped Him saying, ‘Truly, You are the Son of God.’

Now, to those words Jesus answered nothing at all so far as we know.  Yet, when Simon said, later on, as we have just heard:

            You are the Christ the Son of the living God!

Jesus proclaimed him blessed because he had been favoured with a revelation from His heavenly Father.   What was the difference between:  ‘You are the Son of God’, and, ‘You are the Christ the Son of the living God’, that brought about such a result?

In the second example Peter recognizes Jesus as not only the ‘Son of God’ but also as the Christ, the Messiah … in other words, as distinct from the terrified disciples’ acclamation which expressed their own relief as much as it acknowledged Jesus’ sovereign power, Peter’s inspired exclamation expressed no personal relief, but ‘with heart and voice’ proclaimed a divinely bestowed awareness of Jesus not just as the powerful Son of God, but as the SAVIOUR; the Son of God indeed, but come to save and redeem -- make atonement for – Israel and all mankind!

Yes, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, the faith which saves us today, the faith which is God’s gift, is not merely knowledge about God but the ability to recognize and respond to the divine truth of God’s-presence-to-save in Jesus and in His Church.

There are those today who denigrate concern for doctrinal accuracy, not only in public words but also personal thinking.  For them, with them, the words ‘dogma’ and ‘dogmatic thinking’ have acquired unsavoury overtones of meaning whereby they imply an overbearing, intolerant, and rigidly narrow cast of mind; they are said to stifle our spontaneity, extinguish constructive adaptation, thwart our spiritual growth.  Again, such thinkers and speakers claim that there is no such thing as objective truth, no incontrovertible truth concerning God.

But look at Jesus in today’s Gospel!  How interested and concerned He was that men, above all His disciples, should think the truth about Himself; and such was His esteem for that truth that when He heard Simon give voice to it He immediately concluded with absolute certainty that His Father had spoken to and through Simon, with the result that He most solemnly declared:

Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My heavenly Father.

Moreover, He then went on to speak words of enduring validity:

And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

Again, later on He would declare (John 18:37):

For this was I born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth;

and would, on the eve of His crucifixion speak in prayer to His Father these most holy words:

Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you, and (these You have given Me) know that You sent Me (John 17:25),

where knowledge of truth embraces as one with the Father, Jesus and His disciples.

Faith is, indeed, a most sure knowledge of divine truth, for Jesus Himself is ‘the Truth’; and it requires, calls for, a total commitment of love.

To know the Truth, to recognize the Truth, to appreciate, love and proclaim the Truth … that is a most sure sign of God’s loving presence.  On the other hand, to embrace error, rejecting the truth, is subject to the following dread judgment of Our Lord:

Because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.  If I am telling the truth, why do you not believe Me?  Whoever belongs to God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not listen, because you do not belong to God.”  (John 8:45-47)

A theologian may be able to write volumes about God and more volumes about the Church and what it should be like .. but that, in itself, is not the exercise of Christian faith.  You who see in Christ your own Saviour, you who have come to Mass,  who draw near to the Holy Table at Communion, you who frequent the Sacraments and listen to the Word of God and obey it … you are those of whom  Jesus said:

Blessed are you; for flesh and blood have not revealed (such things) to you but My heavenly Father!

That ability to recognize Jesus as Saviour, the God-Man, come to save each one of us personally and to offer salvation to the whole of mankind in and through His Church, that is the true Christian faith which is the Father’s best gift.

A most important aspect of the need for dogmatic teaching in the Church and accurate personal thinking is the fact that our thoughts guide our choices and form our characters.  And that is the reason for the apparently strange, but in reality one of the most significant expressions in the New Testament writings, to do the truth (John 3:21; in the Latin, ‘qui facit veritatem’) well rendered in more modern idiom by:

But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.

You who are true disciples of Jesus and desire earnestly to grow in love of Him and fidelity to Him, know your Catholic and Christian doctrine.  Do not let random emotional feelings determine your deliberate thoughts.  But rather, through your deliberate thoughts mould and adapt your feelings to the Truth of Jesus in the Church, and then endeavour whole-heartedly to love that Truth (at times it has to be willed as Truth before it can become loved as Truth) with your total commitment.

Note also that Simon said ‘You are the Christ’, the Christ foretold by the prophets from of old; the Christ whose message is for Israel and for the whole world through Israel; the Christ with Whom the whole world in all its inarticulate beauty, majesty, and power resonates in deep, mysterious, harmony; the Christ who fulfils all the longings and desires of the human heart; the Christ in Whom alone my own individual life at last takes on transcendent significance and purpose, as it experiences the unimaginable joy of a beginning to its fulfilment both temporal and eternal.

In this aspect of our Catholic and Christian faith, People of God, lies the hidden treasure of our heavenly calling and earthly service for our world today; for we have to live ever more deeply our faith that Jesus is the unique Christ and only Saviour for the whole of mankind, because He is Perfect God and Perfect Man. We must develop our ability -- by grace and through prayer -- to recognize and respond to Him; and in Him, with Him, learn to love the Father in heaven and our brethren on earth at all times and in all circumstances.  For all creation, all men, all happenings, have unique significance, beauty, and meaning when encountered, recognized, and responded to with Jesus the Christ for the Father; and only as we -- His humble and sincere disciples -- appreciate this ever more fully, will we be truly living in the heart of the world as authentic witnesses to and members of Jesus, and in Him as Spirit-formed and Spirit-endowed children of the heavenly Father.