Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time
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Today's Word
"But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." - Matthew 16:15-16 Full readings at USCCB
Real Talk
Jesus asks two questions and they are very different. The first - who do people say I am? - you can answer from things you've heard. The disciples rattle off the options: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets. All reasonable, all secondhand.
The second question - but who do YOU say I am? - you can only answer from the inside. And Jesus tells Peter after he answers: flesh and blood didn't give you that. Your Father did. The revelation that makes faith real is not something you argue your way into. It comes from somewhere else.
Paul ends his most complicated theological argument by just giving up trying to explain it: Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments! Sometimes the only honest response to what God has done is not an explanation - it is doxology, praise at the depth of it.
Isaiah's image is useful: a peg in a sure spot, fixed so securely that things can be hung on it. The person whose faith is the peg others hang their weight on has received something, not worked something up.
Your Challenge
Interior: Who do you say he is? Not the answer you'd give in confirmation class or in front of your family. What do you actually know from your own experience of him - one specific thing, not a doctrine? Name it. If you can't name it yet, that is honest information too. Sit with the question the way Peter must have sat with it before the revelation came.
One Prayer
Lord, give me Peter's revelation, not just Peter's information. Let me know you from the inside. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us. Amen.
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