24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

My Dear People,

The incidence on Caesarea Philippi is a very interesting incident and very important. When Peter, whose words were put in by Mark the Evangelist, indicated the important of the chair of Peter and of the Papacy, Peter spoke on behalf of the apostles. He was the one who recognized Christ as being the Messiah. He is the one whom Jesus, at the beginning of his ministry when he saw Peter, called him Rock (Cephas). In the readings today, it is explained why Peter is called Cephas, and why Jesus founded the church on Peter. He is the one who remained faithful to Jesus when many disciples left because they did not like what Jesus said: “unless you eat my body and drink my blood you have no life within you. To this Peter replied, “Where do we go? You have the words of everlasting life.” We read this a few weeks ago. Today we hear Peter’s response on who is the Christ. He is the one who truly recognizes him as being the Christ, (the anointed one), the messiah, for whom the Jews have been waiting and who is to come. He answers this because the heavenly Father has revealed this to him. Peter being the Rock, he is the one to whom Jesus entrusted his church. 

In addition, when Peter calls Jesus the Messiah, it is then that Jesus reveals the plan of his life, the plan that he as the messiah must suffer and die, that he will be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and will be killed and rise again after three days. This was planned before Jesus was incarnate; this was planned by the Father way before Jesus was born. There is a mention in the Garden of Eden that God tells the devil, I will put an enmity between you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. The devil was going to try to do anything to crush Jesus. For that reason, Jesus did not want to perform the first miracle at Cana-- he thought that the devil would realize that he was the messiah and unleash all his forces against him, and his hour would come soon. Because of this Jesus told his mother, my hour has not yet come, when Mary asked him for a miracle to turn the water into wine. However, Jesus, being obedient, responded to the desire of his mother.

Regarding the scribes and Pharisees of his time, they were no different than the scribes, the Pharisees and the elders of other times. The suffering and death of Jesus was planned by the Father to redeem us from our sins (crush the head of the serpent). Through his death he would defeat the devil. Jesus dying on the cross, what was supposed to be the devil’s victory, ended up being his ultimate defeat. This was clearly emphasized in the movie the Passion of Christ.  As at the time of Christ, so it is today that the devil unleashes his forces against those who are the biggest target, those who represent Christ on earth. He tries the hardest to get to those-- these are the church leaders, bishops, priests, and people who are spiritual leaders. The devil does not want the kingdom of God which Christ established on earth to succeed. He will do anything to discredit it. He will attack any leader, as he did in the time of Christ, so that he can attack Christ. It is the same battle between the same spiritual forces today that it was then. These scandals in the church are evidence of how the devil is trying very hard to destroy the church.  Our answer is the same as Peter’s-- Where do we go? You (Jesus) have the words of everlasting life. We need to rely on Christ to defeat the devil, and we need to do penance so that we will be able to repair the damage done by those who have succumbed to the forces of evil.

This is a time of warning for us as priests, to know that we must always be alert, that we need to pray harder, so that we do not succumb to the forces of the evil one. In the letter of Peter which states that the devil is like a lion looking for someone to devour, Peter tells us how to respond to the forces of evil: to be alert and to always watch that we do not fall into temptation, and if we fall, to do repentance and to ask the Lord for forgiveness.

 May God bless you.

Fr. Vincent Clemente

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