Sunday Gospel Reflection
I can’t guarantee I’ll do this every week, but once in a while I am going to talk about the Sunday Gospel reading, what it means, what my priest says during his homily, how I try to live it out in my life (and how you can, too). The Gospel (which means “good news” for those of you who may not be Christian) is rich and full of comfort and wisdom and words of guidance for living our lives.
Today’s Gospel, from Mark 8:27-35:
Jesus and his disciples set out
for the villages of Caesarea Philippi.
Along the way he asked his disciples,
“Who do people say that I am?”
They said in reply,
“John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others one of the prophets.”
And he asked them,
“But who do you say that I am?”
Peter said to him in reply,
“You are the Christ.”
Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him.He began to teach them
that the Son of Man must suffer greatly
and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed, and rise after three days.
He spoke this openly.
Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples,
rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan.
You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them,
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake
and that of the gospel will save it.”
The first thing that strikes me is Peter. My husband often says that Peter suffered from a severe case of foot-in-mouth disease, and often said things that were foolish and…well…extremely human. And despite his flaws, Christ eventually chose Peter to be the first pope, the rock on which He would build His Church. This is why the very human foibles and failings of our priests and popes are not cause lamentation or even necessarily despair – the first priests, the first pope, were just as sinful and flawed as we are. Christ Himself was perfect, and expected us to imitate Him, but if attaining His perfection were even a posibility Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary would not be nearly as powerful or as necessary.
It is Peter who says, when asked by Jesus, that Jesus is the Christ. It is a simple, but accurate and honest statement. A sign of Peter’s faith. Of course – mere moments later – it is also Peter who “rebukes” Christ when Jesus tells them He will have to suffer and die a humiliating death. Christ then rebukes Peter, and harshly so, telling Peter, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Undoubtedly the idea that a beloved teacher, leader, friend like Jesus would die in the most degrading way known to man would unsettle the apostles who loved Him. But Jesus had a mission – to make the ultimate sacrifice out of His love for His apostles, and all of us – and it needed to be fulfilled.
The second part of the Gospel is this notion of denying the self, taking up the cross, and following Christ.
Wow.
Difficult stuff, huh?
Very deep, and very hard to accept.
And I acknowledge that difficulty 100%. I fail. I falter. I don’t always live for Christ. I don’t pray nearly as often as I should. I should go to Mass daily (I always attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation), I should read the Scriptures more. These are things I know and they’re always on my mind.
This, however, is only a fraction of what it means when Christ says mankind must “deny himself.” Of course, this doesn’t mean we should necessarily deny ourselves of food, water, shelter, clothing. Indeed there’s nothing wrong with having good food to eat, a nice home, decent clothing so long as the attempts to attain and retain those things do not usurp God’s as the focus in our life. That’s not hard to do, really. I have a roof over my head, food on my table, clothes on my back and I can provide those things for my children. No, we’re not millionaires, but we are better off than many and I’m grateful for that. Thanks be to God.
To deny outselves means to deny ourselves from those sinful impusles and desires that often define humanity. Lust, sloth, gluttony, greed, wrath, envy, pride – the seven deadlies. You know them. We all engage or dance on the fringes of them daily.
We’re also often encouraged by a world that especially seems to esteem lust and its sinful manifestations (fornication, contraception, homosexuality, abortion). They tell us these things are not only normal, but good, and a fulfillment of human potential.
No. No, no, no, no, no. A thousand times no.
These things break our relationship with God, damage it. Damage our soul.
And the other difficult thing is that we – as Catholics – have to deny ourselves the acclaim, popularity, kindess we would like to receive in the world and say that such behaviors our wrong. We have to deny ourselves in order to speak the Truth of Christ and the Gospel to others.
Not easy.
But being a Catholic isn’t.
