20220804 A PERSONAL AND ECCLESIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST
04 August, 2022, Thursday, 18th Week in Ordinary Time
First reading |
Jeremiah 31:31-34 © |
I will write my Law in their hearts
See, the days are coming – it is the Lord who speaks – when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah), but not a covenant like the one I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant of mine, so I had to show them who was master. It is the Lord who speaks. No, this is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel when those days arrive – it is the Lord who speaks. Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people. There will be no further need for neighbour to try to teach neighbour, or brother to say to brother, ‘Learn to know the Lord!’ No, they will all know me, the least no less than the greatest – it is the Lord who speaks – since I will forgive their iniquity and never call their sin to mind.
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 50(51):12-15,18-19 © |
A pure heart create for me, O God.
A pure heart create for me, O God,
put a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
nor deprive me of your holy spirit.
A pure heart create for me, O God.
Give me again the joy of your help;
with a spirit of fervour sustain me,
that I may teach transgressors your ways
and sinners may return to you.
A pure heart create for me, O God.
For in sacrifice you take no delight,
burnt offering from me you would refuse,
my sacrifice, a contrite spirit.
A humbled, contrite heart you will not spurn.
A pure heart create for me, O God.
Gospel Acclamation | Ps144:13 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
The Lord is faithful in all his words
and loving in all his deeds.
Alleluia!
Or: | Mt16:18 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
You are Peter,
and on this rock I will build my Church.
And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it.
Alleluia!
Gospel |
Matthew 16:13-23 © |
You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi he put this question to his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say he is John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ ‘But you,’ he said ‘who do you say I am?’ Then Simon Peter spoke up, ‘You are the Christ,’ he said, ‘the Son of the living God.’ Jesus replied, ‘Simon son of Jonah, you are a happy man! Because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. So I now say to you: You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church. And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.’ Then he gave the disciples strict orders not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.
From that time Jesus began to make it clear to his disciples that he was destined to go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, to be put to death and to be raised up on the third day. Then, taking him aside, Peter started to remonstrate with him. ‘Heaven preserve you, Lord;’ he said ‘this must not happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my path, because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’
A PERSONAL AND ECCLESIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [Jer 31:31-34; Mt 16:13-23]
Why did the first covenantal relationship with God fail? Did not God establish a personal relationship with the people of Israel beginning with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses? He did! Abraham was known to be the friend of God. “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, and he was called the friend of God.” (Jms 2:23) “The Lord used to speak to Moses, face to face, as one speaks to a friend.” (Ex 33:11) When Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses, the Lord was angry. He said, “When there are prophets among you, I the Lord make myself known to them in visions; I speak to them in dreams. Not so with my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house. With him I speak face to face – clearly, not in riddles; and he beholds the form of the Lord.” (Num 12:6-8)
The people themselves had seen the power of God at work in their lives. God told the Hebrews, “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” (Ex 19:4-6) Moses instructed the people, “But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children.” (Dt 4:9) For these reasons, Moses commanded the people to teach their children to do the same. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Dt 6:4-9)
Then what happened? The truth is that generations later as is true even in our days, people lose faith. It seems that faith stays in the first generation and then as each generation comes and goes, the faith is diminished because their children did not appreciate their faith since they did not pay a price for it. Unfortunately, an inherited faith cannot be sustained for long. What we do not see or experience, we will lack conviction. So when we do not search for our faith and make efforts to understand and grow in our relationship with God, that faith will become a mere intellectual faith and eventually just a nominal faith. We will die only for what we believe. This is true for the people of Israel and for our generation of Catholics as well. This explains why the Christian faith is dying in Europe whilst the faith in Asia and Africa is growing because many of us, including our parents, are adult converts from our native religions. We paid a price for it and we studied our faith, deepened our relationship with God, knew that He is real before we converted.
In other words, the Old Covenant was cast in stone whereas the New Covenant is written in the hearts of men. St Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” (2 Cor 3:3) St Paul said, God “has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Cor 3:6) Jeremiah said of the New Covenant, “See, the days are coming when I will make a new covenant but not a covenant like the one I made with their ancestors on the day. They broke that covenant of mine. No, this is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel when those days arrive. Deep within them, I will plant my law, writing it on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people. There will be no further need for neighbour to try to teach neighbour, or brother to say to brother, ‘Learn to know the Lord!’ No, they will all know me, the least no less than the greatest since I will forgive their iniquity and never call their sin to mind.” In other words, the new covenant is carved in our hearts, not on stones. Ezekiel prophesied, “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.” (Ez 36:26-28)
This was certainly the case with the apostles in today’s gospel when it came to confessing their faith in the Lord. The Lord began by asking them, “‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say he is John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ ‘But you,’ he said, ‘who do you say I am?'” Indeed, the Lord did not want hearsay knowledge of who He was to them. Instead, He asked for a personal commitment from them. How did they see Him and who was He to them? Jesus knew that knowledge from a second-hand source would not make them give up their lives for Him. That also explains why after Peter’s confession of faith Jesus “gave the disciples strict orders not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.” Why? For the same reason. They might know His identity from a second-hand source but they would not know Him personally. As a consequence, they would think they know Jesus because they could name Him but they would not know what that title really meant. Such was the situation of St Peter as well.
However, such personal knowledge of our Lord is also a gift. For when Simon Peter spoke up, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus replied, ‘Simon son of Jonah, you are a happy man! Because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven.'” It is a divine revelation. So coming to know Jesus’ true identity cannot be from mere study and research alone. We require the assistance of grace and divine revelation. Only God can give us the grace of encountering Him deeply and radically as in the case of St Paul. Even for the apostles, after having been revealed the identity of our Lord, they did not fully grasp the meaning of it until after His passion, death and resurrection. St Peter fell from his height when he remonstrated with our Lord for speaking about His imminent passion and death. Peter said “‘Heaven preserve you, Lord, this must not happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me Satan! You are an obstacle in my path, because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.'” At that moment, Peter spoke from his ignorance.
Hence, it is also true that personal faith in the Lord is also not sufficient unless that faith is also an ecclesial faith. There is the danger today that individual Christians who claim to have a personal faith in our Lord and a personal relationship with Him may have a faith that differs from the faith of the Church. Their interpretation of the person and identity of Jesus differs from the interpretation of the Church. So this emphasis on personal knowledge of our Lord can lead to a subjective interpretation of Christ that differs from the ecclesial confession of faith. So we can make Jesus a figment of our imagination and make Him out to be a political Messiah, a revolutionary, a social transformer and a liberator.
This is what the Lord meant when He said to Peter, “So I now say to you; You are Peter and on this rock, I will build my Church. And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.” In other words, every Christian must confess the same faith as Peter. The Church is not just built on Peter as a person, as a vicar of Christ but also in his confession of Christ as the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Peter was articulating his confession not just for himself but on behalf of the Church. This is why, we believe and confess in Peter and his successor as the chief teacher and shepherd of the universal Church. Hence, the faith as taught by the Holy Father in his capacity as the Vicar of Christ, when proclaimed solemnly is infallible. We trust that just as Jesus assured us that He would build His church on Peter, the rock, so too when the church is one with Peter and his successors, the Church would remain strong and united against the gates of hell and every onslaught of the world. Our personal faith must be aligned with the ecclesial faith for it to be strong and firm.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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