The love of worldly possessions is a sort of birdlime (i.e., manure) which entangles the soul and prevents it flying to God.
- St. Augustine -
(What attachments weigh you down at this time in your life? How might you release them that you might live more freely in God's loving providence?)
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1 Pt 5:1-4; Psalm 23:1-3a, 4, 5, 6
Mt 16:13-19
When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi
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.”
Reflection on the Scriptures
The Gospel today expresses the authority that God bestows on the Church to speak and act on God’s behalf. Peter, the rock of unity, has the power to hold the body together in Christ’s name, because he recognizes that Jesus is God’s voice on earth, that Jesus is the source of salvation and that he, Peter, must act in the manner of Jesus. The first and greatest gift a Pope must have is faith in God’s
plan and gratitude for God’s salvation of all persons. Therein lies our human flourishing.
Jesus recognizes in Peter’s faith statement the power of God to grant Divine Authority to one or another of the community. Peter’s faith did not come from himself, but from God, and is the sign that Jesus has been looking for regarding the Father’s Will for Jesus’ human “stand in” in the relationships of the community. By giving Peter the “keys” he in fact gives His own power to reveal God and the Good
News of God’s love to Peter and his successors here on earth. We often think of the power of Peter is to stand at the “pearly gates” of life after death and determine who gets into heaven, but the key is to the Church in this life, its sacraments, and the graces of faith, hope and love. The key Peter has is the key to the “Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.” Only when we grasp this and heed the call to Unity with the Body of Christ in this world, will we really enter the
Kingdom of God. Eternal life starts here and now in this moment, not when we go through the passage of the death of this body. Our joy, our hope, our human fulfillment lies in living in the Reign of God here and now – and Peter’s Chair and keys are symbols of the authority of God that helps that to happen by uniting us in a community of love.
- by Eileen Sullivan Burke
The Existence of God
by Francois Fenelon
SECTION. V. Noble Comparisons proving that Nature shows the Existence of its Maker. First Comparison, drawn from Homer's "Iliad."
Who will believe that so perfect a poem as Homer's "Iliad" was not the product of the genius of a great poet, and that the letters of the alphabet, being confusedly jumbled and mixed, were by chance, as it were by the cast of a pair of dice, brought together in such an order as is necessary to describe, in verses full of harmony and variety, so many great events; to place and connect them so well together; to
paint every object with all its most graceful, most noble, and most affecting attendants; in short, to make every person speak according to his character in so natural and so forcible a manner? Let people argue and subtilise upon the matter as much as they please, yet they never will persuade a sensible person that the "Iliad" was the mere result of chance. Cicero said the same in relation to Ennius's "Annals;" adding that chance could never make one single verse, much less a whole
poem. How then can anyone be induced to believe, with respect to the universe, a work beyond contradiction more wonderful than the "Iliad," what his reason will never suffer him to believe in relation to that poem? Let us attend another comparison, which we owe to St. Gregory Nazianzenus.
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