On Saturdays, we pre-send the Sunday reflection for families - the same one Hearth & Altar subscribers receive at the table together.

Have a blessed Sunday - we'll be back Monday morning.

Sunday's Reflection — Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jer 20:7-9; Ps 63:2-8; Rom 12:1-2; Mt 16:21-27

Last Sunday Peter said the right thing: you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. This Sunday Jesus tells him what that means — Jerusalem, suffering, death, the third day — and Peter takes him aside and rebukes him. God forbid, Lord. No such thing shall ever happen to you.

Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.

Peter had the right answer and the wrong cross. He understood who Jesus was. He could not accept what Jesus was going to do.

Jeremiah tried to hold in the word that was costing him everything. I will not mention him. I will speak in his name no more. But then it became like fire burning in his heart, imprisoned in his bones. He grew weary holding it in. He could not endure it.

Paul says: offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. Do not conform to this age. Be transformed. Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

The cross is the thing we keep trying to negotiate Jesus out of.

This month we begin the Seven Sorrows of Mary. She stood where Peter could not.

Universal Prayer

• For our family, that we would not be Peter — confessing Christ with our mouths and then trying to protect him from the cross that comes with the confession, we pray to the Lord.
• As we begin the month of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, for her intercession for all of us still learning to take up what costs us something, we pray to the Lord.
• For those in our family who carry a word like fire in their bones — a truth that burns and costs too much to speak — that they would find the courage, we pray to the Lord.
• For those trying to save the life they are supposed to offer, that transformation would come before the loss does, we pray to the Lord.

Faith in Action

Tonight begin the September devotion together. September is the month of the Seven Sorrows of Mary. Name the first sorrow: Simeon's prophecy. A very old man looked at the infant Jesus in Mary's arms and said to her: a sword shall pierce your own soul.

Light a candle near Mary's image and say together: Mary, Mother of Sorrows, keep our hearts open to the cross.

A Note for Parents

The Seven Sorrows of Mary are seven moments in which Mary stood at the edge of suffering — her son's, and therefore her own. This month, name one sorrow each week at the candle. Children who grow up knowing Mary's sorrows are children who know they are not alone in theirs.