Ordinary Time - Week 24b
Who do you say that I am?
(From Conversation with God, Fernandez Carvajal)It was the third year of Jesus' public ministry and the feast of Pentecost was drawing near. The Lord had gone up to Jerusalem on the two previous celebrations to preach the Good News. On this occasion, however, he seemed reluctant to go to the Holy City. Perhaps he wanted to shield his followers from the hostility of his enemies. He led them instead to the tranquil villages around Caesarea Philippi. St Luke relates that after praying for some time, the Lord put his famous query to the Apostles: Who do men say that I am? With remarkable simplicity they responded: John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others one of the prophets. Then Jesus asked with more insistence: But who do you say that l am?
There are many questions in this life which we can safely ignore without consequence. There are other questions which have a more important relation to ourselves and to our society. One thinks of the dignity of the human person, the ultimate impermanence of temporal goods, the fleeting nature of our life on earth. There is still a more momentous question which touches upon the meaning of our existence. It is the question which Christ posed to the Apostles at Caesarea Philippi almost twenty centuries ago: But who do you say that I am? There is only one valid answer. You are the Christ, the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Only-Begotten One of God. He is the person who is of the greatest importance to my des tiny, my happiness, my successes and failures in this life and hereafter.
Our happiness is not in our health, our worldly successes or our ability to get what we want. Our life will have been worth something if and when we fall in love with Christ. All our problems can be resolved if we are close to him. There is no satisfactory solution to any of these problems of ours without reference to the Lord.
Through the testimony of Peter, the Apostles give Jesus their summary of what the two years of being next to him have meant. In our case also, in order to make a more conscious profession of faith in Jesus Christ, we must, like Peter, listen attentively and carefully. We must follow in the school of the first disciples, who had become his witnesses and our teachers. At the same time we must accept the experience and testimony of no less than twenty centuries of history marked by the Master's question and enriched by the immense chorus of responses of the faithful of all times and places. We should seriously ask ourselves whether Christ has an important place in our hearts. Let us pray with St Paul: But whatever gain I had; I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worm of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ.