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Message of the Day
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The disclosure of God transforms our narrow faiths, challenging our preconceptions of divine unity, power and goodness. Whereas we ordinarily seek the transcendent to ratify our cherished beliefs, the God of Jesus Christ is opposed to the idols we make of self, nation, race or economic production. We seek an omnipotence that is like the powers of the world, raised to an ultimate degree, but in Jesus Christ God's power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore "revelation is the beginning of a revolution in our power thinking and our power politics." We seek a good that will protect our own goods, but find in Christ that the true good empties itself for others.
- Douglas F. Ottati, God and Ourselves
(How much is your "image of God" like unto Christ? How does He challenge your understanding of God?) |
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Lectionary Readings
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NM 20:1-13; PS 95:1-2, 6-9; MT 16:13-23
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
"Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tested me;
they tested me though they had seen my works."
USCCB Lectionary
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Reflection on the Gospel
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Jesus plays on Peter's name which is the same word for "rock" in both Aramaic and Greek. To call someone a "rock" is one of the greatest of compliments. The ancient rabbis had a saying that when God saw Abraham, he exclaimed: "I have discovered a rock to found the world upon". Through Abraham God established a nation for himself. Through faith Peter grasped who Jesus truly was. He was the first apostle to recognize Jesus as the Anointed One (Messiah
and Christ) and the only begotten Son of God. The New Testament describes the church as a spiritual house or temple with each member joined together as living stones (see 1 Peter 2:5). Faith in Jesus Christ makes us into
rocks or spiritual stones. The Lord Jesus tests each of us personally with the same question: Who do you say that I am?
"Lord Jesus, I profess and believe that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. You are my Lord and my Savior. Make my faith strong like Peter's and give me boldness to speak of you to others that they may come to know you personally as Lord and Savior and grow in the knowledge of your love".
DailyScripture.net
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Spiritual Reading
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The Cloud of Unknowing, by Anonymous How a man shall know when his thought is no sin; and if it be sin, when it is deadly and when it is venial.
But if it so be, that this liking or grumbling fastened in thy fleshly heart be suffered so long to abide unreproved, that then at the last it is fastened to the ghostly heart, that is to say the will, with a full consent: then, it is deadly sin. And this befalleth when thou or any of them that I speak of wilfully draw upon thee the remembrance of any man or woman living in this life, or of any bodily or worldly thing other: insomuch, that if it be a thing the which grieveth or hath grieved thee before, there riseth in thee an angry passion and an appetite of vengeance, the which is called Wrath. Or else a fell disdain and a manner of loathsomeness of their person, with despiteful and condemning thoughts, the which is called Envy. Or else a weariness and an unlistiness of any good occupation bodily or ghostly, the which is called Sloth.
- Chapter 10
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