Month: September 2024

Who Do You Say That I Am?

Dear Friends,

Faith demands trust. Yet, trust is difficult to give. It is difficult for humans to have faith and trust in others because they look at things from their own perspective with the usual question: what if…? A human person is limited to time and space, contingencies and happenstance in a way, nothing is certain, even for the most powerful person. As children, however, we believe that our parents re invincible, restricted by nothing, capable of everything. It is complete confidence that the dad is capable of everything that allows the child to do even dangerous things once the dad is around. This belief of the child is often called “naive” but is the same trust that is demanded of us “children” of God.

The Gospel reading points out that a complete act of faith is renouncing the self, taking up the Cross and following in the footsteps of Jesus. Yes, one may confess his total faith in Jesus like Simon Peter, but will they deny him at the hint of persecution? One who has faith in Jesus ought to lose sleep for others as Jesus did; they ought to give bread to the hungry as Jesus did; they ought to give up their lives as Jesus did, after all, he says to love as he loved (Jn 15:12). He indeed loved to death, but this was to show his complete faith in his Father who will raise him up again. What total faith!

We answer to personal question of who Jesus is to the degree that we manifest the kind of faith that He himself manifested, that complete assurance that in whatever circumstances, our God is faithful and will never let us d0wn in the end, but raise us up, vindicate us and grant us perfect justice.

Fr. Benjamin