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+A MASS FOR THE GENERAL CHAPTER MEETING —
Today’s gospel reveals a unique and very
beautiful moment in the history of the Church. Peter’s proclamation "You are the
Christ, the Son of the living God" is momentous not only for Peter but for all
the members of Christ’s Body for all time. It is not flesh and blood that has
revealed to Peter who Jesus is but our heavenly Father. And it is our heavenly
Father who continues to reveal to us who Jesus truly is, for it is by faith that
we continually enter into and live out our Christian commitment.
It is Peter’s faith and the faith of his Successors that makes
him the rock on which the Church is build so that the gates of the netherworld
cannot prevail against it. It is in the light of this graced moment that Jesus
called Peter "blessed," bestowing on him a special role for the future of God’s
people.
Peter’s endowment with a unique place within the Church reveals
to us something of God’s own unfathomable plan for us all. The impulsive,
wavering, extroverted and complex personality of Peter becomes the very vehicle
of divine revelation. He is the perfect example of what Paul was later to
express so perceptively in regard to himself, of how God’s power is made perfect
amid our human weakness. As we see Peter called to become the rock on which
Jesus would build his Church, the words of Paul to the Romans this morning shed
light on what is happening: "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and
knowledge of God. How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his
ways...For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be glory
forever." More ink has be spilt, more books been written around
this mystery of Peter’s calling than most of scripture. If one reflects more
deeply one begins to realize just how fitting this all is. For here we encounter
the mystery of just who Jesus is as fully human and fully divine and all that he
hoped to accomplish in and through his followers. Peter’s position in the Church
is deeply related to the whole mystery of God taking on our human weakness. One
might even begin to suggest that Peter’s moment of light is what overwhelms
every Christian believer. The glimpse into who Jesus is opens up God’s eternal
plan for us. To live in its light is to find oneself faced with an horizon that
takes us far beyond what flesh and blood can reveal to us. For
Peter to declare that this Jesus, thought to be a poor carpenter’s son,
uneducated by many standards, this man who eats with tax collectors and sinners
is not only the Messiah but the "Son of the living God" must have shattered
every bit of wisdom Peter had ever come to know or experience. And then hardly
has Peter gotten the light when Jesus begins to show him and other disciples all
that being "the Messiah, the Son of God" was going to entail. He told them that
he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests,
be killed and then be raised. Peter’s response is very humorous were it not so
true to life. His great moment of enlightenment was short lived. He takes Jesus
aside, he who has just been declared the rock on which the Church will be built,
and starts rebuking him for what he has said. But Jesus retracts none of it,
holding out to us as much as to his first disciples the whole mystery of God’s
loving plan for our human family, that we will be redeemed amid his suffering
and death. The early Church spoke often of the Eucharist as
"these holy mysteries." What we celebrate at this altar is nothing less than
Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Though our faith, these holy mysteries
surround and endow the life of every baptized Christian with its deepest meaning
and promise. The faith of Peter passed on to us through the living tradition of
the Church opens our own eyes to who Jesus is for our 21st century, to the life
he wishes to live in and through us. We now are his Body, the living members
that carry his love to all in need, sacraments of his presence in a world
looking more than ever for signs of God’s saving love.
Michael Casagram, OCSO
Abbey of Gethsemani
2 September 2008
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