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In today’s Gospel, Jesus asks His disciples: “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
And then in response to that, Jesus makes Peter the first pope, the rock that the Church is built on.
Now, unless you’re 6, you’ve heard that passage quite a number of times, so we’re not too shocked at that. We know the story.
But let’s think about how the disciples, especially Peter, might’ve taken it.
Here they are, students hanging out with their teacher. They’re learning lots and just trying to do their best not to disappoint Him. Then Jesus asks them a seemingly random question – “Who do people say that I am?” They start giving guesses, hoping to be right. Then they’re asked what they think, and they all pause, wondering what answer Jesus is looking for, not wanting to be wrong. Then an idea pops in Peter’s head and he just says it without thinking (because that’s the kind of guy that Peter is).
Then there’s a moment of silence and he, along with his fellow disciples, are freaking out that he said something totally idiotic.
And then boom, Jesus basically tells Peter that he’s gonna run the whole show.
Talk about being blindsided. Here’s Peter, just trying to answer a question, and it ends up being a group interview for the most important position in the world.
Now, that may seem like a whole heckuva lot for Peter to take on. After all, he was just a fisherman before Jesus came along. But he had his fellow Apostles, not to mention the Holy Spirit, right there with him.
And that’s the beautiful thing about the Church. We are never alone. We are never in it on our own. We not only have the Holy Spirit guiding us all the way – we have a community of people who are there to help and support us.
Too often we forget this – we think that we need to carry all our burdens on our own. We think that if we can’t do it on our own that we are weak. You know what’s weak? That type of thinking. Being humble, admitting that you need help – that takes strength and courage (now, if you’re just lazy asking for help, that’s just being lazy).
The world gives us mixed messages on this. There are plenty of people who take pride on being “self-made” (even though in reality there is no such thing), and even in elementary school, there’s a fear of being laughed at if you raise your hand to ask a question. But then we look to coaches and leaders in fields to teach us how to exercise, how to cook, how to [fill in the blank].
Mass is important like that. It’s about coming together as a community. Praying together as a community. It doesn’t matter what your skin color is, where you come from, what you do – we come together. And something that we need to remember is that we come together so that we can not only worship together, but also help each other in the only real goal that matters – getting to heaven. It’s not about just me getting myself to heaven, it’s about helping all of us get to heaven.
I wonder if any of the other disciples were like, “I was just gonna say that!” or “That was going to be my second guess!”
