We are in the Twenty-first Sunday of ordinary time. In the Gospel, Jesus asks His disciples who do people say about Him? The place where Jesus raises this question has important significance. Caesarea Philippi is the place of numerous deities. During Jesus’ time statues of various deities were erected in Caesarea Philippi. So, whoever visits this place would see the might of different gods and the glory of supernatural powers. It is in this place that Jesus enquires about His identity. The disciples answer that people identify Jesus as one of the early prophets like Jeremiah, Elijah and so on. This is how the people understood and perceived Jesus. But Simon peter, affirms that Jesus as the messiah, the son of the living God. This affirmation of peter is on behalf of all the disciples as he is conceived to be the spokesperson of disciples.
The difference between
ordinary people and the disciples’ in identifying who Jesus is of no wonder. The
people’s understanding of Jesus is from their external conception. The way they
saw Jesus, the things they heard about Jesus, the wonders they witnessed… all these
shaped their understanding and knowledge about Jesus. On the contrary, the
disciples moved beyond their knowledge and had personal experience with the
person of Jesus. They synthesized
different things they had about Jesus, personalized
each new things they witnessed in Jesus and interiorized
all that Jesus was preaching in the course of their formation to be apostles. They
did not limit themselves to external knowledge, they sought wisdom. St. Pauls
in his first letter to the Corinthians tells that Jesus as the wisdom (1 Cor
1:24 ). Knowledge about person or things can change as they undergo change and evolve
in time whereas, wisdom remains same. Wisdom is attained gradually. Wisdom consists
in divine revelation. Jesus tells peter that it is His Father in Heaven who
revealed to him about His messianic identity (Mt 16:17). To identify the humble,
silent, meek, suffering and would be crucified Jesus as the Messiah is contrary
to then Jewish expectation of Messiah who had understanding of messiah as warrior.
Peter’s affirmation has both human and divine element. For the son of God to
suffer in the hands of human and to be crucified is foolishness in human understanding.
But to extract God’s plan in that foolishness is wisdom. To attain this we need
divine revelation. For that we need to synthesize, personalize and interiorize all that we know of Jesus.
Once we attain this wisdom,
we become like rock which cannot be shaken. Peter had divine revelation,
received wisdom and became a rock on which Jesus built His church (Mt 16:18). The
Catholic Church continues to exist even after 2o centuries is because of the wisdom
that it received from God. The wisdom is like rock which once attained, on one
can break it. The existence of Catholic Church even after so many empires that had
come and gone is a sign that it possesses’ wisdom and is built on a rock. All the
human empires have perished, but the Catholic Church remains because it has the
element of divine in it’s foundation. The second reading from (Rom 11:33-36) make
us wonder about the knowledge and wisdom of God. To see God in suffering and
crucified Jesus needs wisdom. We have some tribal and natural religions which
personify their gods as mighty figures. They are the outcome of their
imagination and assumption about divine power. We Christians proclaim the
crucified Jesus as God. God made use of what man thought to be foolish as
medium to communicate life. The one who experienced the cruel death in the
hands of roman soldiers was raised from the death. He is Jesus. The Pharisees and
Sadducees had knowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus would bring an end to the
followers of Jesus. But they lacked wisdom to see that what they do to Jesus is
fulfilling God’s plan.
Therefore, as we have these
beautiful readings today as food for our souls, let us synthesize, personalize and interiorize all that we know about
Jesus to have wisdom about Him. Let us synthesize, personalize and interiorize all that disturbs us, all that makes us worry, all
that we wonder in this time of covid 19 pandemic to see God’s will. Let us seek
for divine revelation to witness gloriousness in present suffering. We may seek
for relief from this deadly virus. But God may use this as a medium to
transform the humanity forever. Who knows! God might have prevented great
disaster through this virus. O Who knows! We can only sing,
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