August 30
The 1st Prediction
of The
Passion
Matthew 16:21-27
Today's Gospel: Matthew 16:21-27
(The 1st Prediction of the Passion)
From that time on, Jesus began to show his
disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders,
the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be
raised. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord!
No such thing shall ever happen to you.” He turned and said to Peter, “Get
behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does,
but as human beings do.”
The Conditions of Discipleship
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever
wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For
whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my
sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? For the
Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will
repay everyone according to his conduct.
Reflection:
Peter had just correctly named Jesus as the
Christ, the Son of the living God, in the previous chapter. Now, hearing Jesus
predict His own suffering and death, Peter takes Him aside and rebukes Him for
it, and Jesus calls him Satan. The same mouth that spoke the truth about who
Jesus was, one breath later, tried to talk Him out of the cross that truth
required.
That's how close faith and resistance to the cross can live inside the very
same heart. You can believe correctly and still, in the next moment, want the
easier version of that belief, one without suffering or cost, and the one
without a cross attached to it. Peter wanted Jesus without Calvary. Jesus told
him plainly that option doesn't exist.
Our Lady never once tried to talk her Son out of His cross, even standing
beneath it watching Him die, even though every instinct a mother has would have
begged Him down from it if she could. She understood, better than Peter did
that day, that the cross wasn't an obstacle to the truth she believed. It was
the truth, fully lived out.
Are you like Peter - saying the right words, but still trying to talk
your way out of your own cross? Jesus didn't skip the suffering. He died because
of your sins to defeat death and save you. Let that sink in.
Rosary Man Jim 🌹
Freely given. Freely shared.
