24th Sunday of Ordinary

Today’s first reading from the prophet Isaiah describes how God’s Servant would encounter resistance, Persecution, and martyrdom, and how God would stand by him during all his trials. And we hear Jesus predict in today’s Gospel that suffering, death and resurrection are ahead for him.

Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter said,

“You are the Christ, ie., you are the Messiah, the long awaited savior.” Peter could recognize Jesus as Messiah, but he really had only a limited idea of what Messiah meant. Jesus instructed them that it meant Jesus would have to suffer if he were going to save the people, and idea Peter rejected and for which Jesus severely reprimanded him. Jesus challenged them to rethink their definition of “Messiah”, not as a powerful and glorious savior, but as a suffering Messiah. They still have to learn about the mystery and the power of the cross.

           It is this problem of suffering that is precisely where a lot of people lose faith in God or lose faith in Christ. Like Peter most of us want a Messiah who will take away our problems, not one who has to suffer and who tells us to take up our cross if we wish to follow him. What Jesus is telling us is that following him will make our crosses in life lighter and easier to bear. In this we will be saved. In March 1996, Seven Trappist monks were cruelly slaughtered in Algeria in North Africa, victims of religious fanatics. The local bishop Pierre Calverie, gave the homily at the funeral of these martyrs. A few months later this bishop himself was murdered by the same fundamentalists. While he preached, his own death was imminent. Was he aware of this? In this homily he said among other things: “If Christianity distances itself from the cross, its content and strength are lost to a certain extent…” We must be willing to hold on to our faith even in the face of death. St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of one thing we hate and on thing we fear, “We can hate truth because it means a change. We fear goodness because we like to keep our own standards…We do not ask ourselves “Does this please Christ?”, but “Does this please the world?”