Homily from the Parish Priest for the Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings of Year A: Isaiah 22:19-23; Romans 11:33-36; Matthew 16:13-20
A few years ago I found myself on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land On the Lake of Galilee. An experience which helped me to connect with Peter for first time in a new way. Who was he? A simple fisherman from a simple fishing town; minding his own business; impulsive; doubting; yet called to be a leader. And here he is being typically Peter in the Gospel today: simply spending time speaking to the Lord who called him on the lakeshore and getting to know him.
I was brought up to have a great reverence for our martyrs, and to appreciate the sacrifice they made for our faith. But it is not only the witness of the apostles’ death that inspires me. Peter, sent out by the Lord, preached the Gospel with such inner conviction through his actions and through his words and yet Peter is a man who has experienced all the trauma of uncertainty about the faith he finally professes with such great courage. In fact we know quite a lot about his personal faith in the Lord. In the Gospel we have heard proclaimed today this is Peter proclaiming the basic Faith of the Church in which he is put in charge – that the Master he has been following is more than just another prophet, more than the one who shows us the way to God, but that Jesus is the Christ, is the incarnate God, God present in our midst.
And yet Peter is so human, so weak, and drawn into a relationship with the Lord as he is. So he becomes the rock on which we build our Faith. The Lord trusts him as he is. Jesus knows his weakness, the denial of him which is around the corner, and all the uncertainty and sheer fear about the future which following Christ in this movement after Christ’s death will surely entail.
What is it in our own life we notice which resembles Peter’s struggles? Maybe it’s our own doubts about faith in God, in the goodness of God behind the plan of our lives, through ways in which we’re hit in life by tragedy, injustice, illness physical and mental. Whatever it is that causes us to struggle with our faith. In our country and world at the moment, although I know it’s become a truism to say so, we are still locked in much fear and uncertainty about the future. We don’t know when we will be able to be released from restrictions on our freedom, when we will be properly safe from fear of the virus, and what life will look like when we finally emerge from the tunnel into what Pope Francis keeps prophesying is a new era, a new chapter for our world.
In the midst of all this we need to hear again the call of the Lord to say who he is for us. Who do you say that I am in the midst of all my fear, anxiety and uncertainty? And we are called to assent to his presence in the midst of all this as our Lord, the son of the living God. And what does Jesus say to us? He says, as he does to Peter, that he trusts us and invites us to rebuild his Church.