Reflection for Sunday August 24, Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time; Matthew 16:13-20

Gospel: Matthew 16:13-20

Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. 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. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

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Reflection:

Do we boast about the things that we do and own? For example we post on facebook the things that we own or the beautiful places that we’ve been through with the motive of letting others know about who we are. Do we boast about how intelligent we are and how profound our knowledge about Jesus and the catholic faith?

The intellect that we have and everything that we have we did not earn by your own effort alone. The Good Lord has a hand on what we know and what we have today. Even our personal success we did not earn it by our own effort, the Good Lord has His hand on it also.

In our gospel today, Peter hit the jackpot when he correctly answered this question of Jesus, “Who do you say that I am?” But Jesus immediately told Peter that it was not through his own intellect that he know Jesus for it was God who enlightened him to know the real identity of Jesus.

We can perhaps relate with this statement of Jesus to Peter. Because there may be times that we boast also about who we are and what we know and have. Jesus reminds us that everything is a gift and grace from the good Lord. Who we are today or how successful we are today is God’s gift to us. That’s why we must not allow ourselves to be carried away by our success no matter how big. 

The Catholic church that we have today was founded by Jesus through Peter. Jesus did not do it because Peter was the favored one or because Peter was always in the thick of things in the life of Jesus. Peter was chosen for the simple reason that it was the will of God and not Peter’s will.

We must therefore stay humble and we must continue to firmly plant our feet on the ground. No matter how successful we are for everything is a gift from God and everything emanates from God’s good will. - Marino J. Dasmarinas