Theme

Twenty first Sunday of the Year *24^thAugust 2008*
Theme :	*‘Empowered not to rule but serve!’*
1st. Reading:	Isaiah 22:15, 19-23
2nd Reading:	Romans 11:33-36
Gospel :	Matthew 16:13 -20

Dear Friend,

Most people like to give orders rather than take orders from another, to dictate and tell other what to do rather than be dictated to, to be the boss rather than the servant. Whenever people are in a position of authority they like to throw their weight around and let people know who is the boss. But in God’s kingdom authority is given not to dominate and control but to serve and uplift people. We are called to empower people rather than enslave people. Have a grateful weekend thanking God for empowering His Church and us!

Fr. Jude Botelho

In today’s first reading we are reminded of Shebna a leader of the people who had a lofty image of himself as well as a lofty place in the palace. He had thoughts to perpetuate his image and had begun to construct his own tomb in a lofty place on the mountain. God had told him that he would be thrown out of the country. We see how God not only takes away Shebna’s symbols of power and domination, but God calls somebody else from a different family to lead and bless God’s people. Eliakim will be father to the people of Jerusalem and all the people will be his people under God. Instead of using his power to control and dominate, he will use his authority for peace. If God chooses us to lead his people in any position, it is not an opportunity to elevate ourselves, but rather to lower ourselves to lift others up.

Ready to Serve?
Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross was a former professor of psychiatry at the University of Chicago. She wrote a best-seller called Death and Dying. The book grew out of interviews with hundreds of people who had been declared clinically dead and then revived. Repeatedly these people report that during their experience they underwent a kind of instant replay of their lives. It was like seeing a movie of everything they’d ever done. How did their instant replay affect these people? Did it reveal anything significant? Commenting on this Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross says: “When you come to this point, you see that there are only two things that are relevant: the service you rendered to others and love. All those things we think are important, like fame, money, prestige, and power, are insignificant.”
Flor McCarthy in ‘New Sunday and Holy Day Homilies’

In today’s gospel Jesus travels with his disciples to Caesarea Philippi, a city whose name celebrates Roman power and dominion. It is here that Jesus poses a big question for the purpose of eliciting a bigger response. “Who do people say that I am?” We know that Jesus was not interested in public opinion, nor was he ever influenced by it. Rather he wanted to know what his disciples thought and felt towards him. Peter speaking for the other disciples declares publicly the name that is opposed to the power of Roman and other worldly forces. “Jesus is the Christ and the son of God”. Peter, who comes from the earthly family of Jonah, is given a new name and a new destiny. “You will be Peter the rock, on which I will build my Church.” Peter, the name in Greek and Aramaic means “rock”, and he is to be the foundation of the group called together, more commonly known as, the Church. Peter’s deep profession of faith is foundational, his acknowledging of Jesus as Lord is not something he figured out by himself, but this knowledge is given to him from above. As Peter proclaims Jesus as Lord, Jesus conveys on this rock the keys, the authority of the kingdom of God. The ‘keys’ which Peter received are the instruments of governing, as Jesus received them from His Father. Keys can be a sign of control, but they can also be a sign of responsibility. This text is often used to prove papal primacy and the power to admit or exclude. But we as the Church are also called to share this authority and power not to dominate others but to be responsible for others. Each of us is given the Key of faith, to exercise Christ’s power to open ears, eyes, and hearts and to shut out the noise of false teachings, false posturing and false temptations to identity. But power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Power can be used as a prop, as a crutch to assist the insecure. But power can also be used to support, to heal and to strengthen the weak and faint hearted, to serve and give life.

Who is Jesus?
C.S. Lewis in his teens was a professed agnostic. He was influenced in his conversion to Christianity by the reading of the book The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton, and by two of his Christian friends. After his conversion, he wrote a number of books defending Christianity. During the Second World War, in his famous BBC radio talk –Mere Christianity, he said thus, “I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who is merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.” If we accept Jesus as a moral teacher, then we must necessarily accept Him as God, for great moral teachers do not tell lies.

John Rose in ’John’s Sunday Homilies’

Public Images
In his book The Image Makers, William Meyers has a chapter on ‘Pioneers of Persuasion’. One of the stories he tells is how an ad executive Rosser Reeves used carefully spliced television commercials during the 1952 presidential campaign to sell General Eisenhower to the public “like a tube of toothpaste.” Ever since then, professional image makers and marketing experts have been employed to package political candidates in a glamourous way so that they will appeal to the voters’ emotions. To be successful today, office seekers have to be as concerned about their image as about the campaign issues. Appearance and performance on television are as important as one’s experience and programs. In the gospel today, it seems that Jesus too was worried about his public image. “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” he asks his disciples. In response they give sort of the latest Gallup poll readout of their day: “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” But as we read further, we see that Jesus was not interested in his popularity rating. He is interested in the more profound question of his essential identity. “Who do you say that I am?” Moreover Jesus is not aiming so much at finding out who he is –he knows that already – but in leading his disciples to discover this for themselves.
Albert Cylwicki in “His Word Resounds”

“Jesus sounds opinion among his disciples and asks what people are saying about him. That he is a great man from the past, a prophet of old: Elijah, Jeremiah, or John the Baptist who has just died, the reply is rather tame. The answers of our contemporaries would doubtless be even more confused, and more watered down, the best would be mingled with the worst, and the sublime with the abusive or insignificant. One thing is certain: the story of Jesus today, just as in his own time, lies not in the past but in the future. If Jesus is truly ‘the Christ, the Son of the living God’ as Simon Peter declares under divine inspiration, then his mystery embraces not just one point of time and space; it extends to every generation and to the whole world. It is on Peter’s confession of faith that Jesus built his church; Peter the man who acted on impulse, but also the disciple who was going to deny him, whom he made his vicar and charged with strengthening his brethren till the coming of the kingdom. The prince of the apostles has left his mark on the church, just as John the mystic, or Paul the missionary would have done in his place. The church is above all the home of us poor believers, who are so often torn between belief and doubt, generosity and disloyalty, but all the same stammering with Peter ‘I believe!’ ” - Glenstal Bible Missal

Who is this Jesus? Where do we find him?
In his book Pray from Where You Are, James Carroll recalls something many of us remember from our childhood. Every Sunday the comic page of our newspapers used to carry a series of printed games. One of everybody’s favourite was a picture showing some scene, like a family enjoying a picnic in a park. Printed beneath the picture were the words, “Can you find the man hidden in the picture?” You’d look and look, and at first wouldn’t see anything that looked like a man. Then you’d turn the paper this way and that to get a different view of it. Suddenly, from the edge of a fluffy white cloud you’d see a ear. Then, from the green leaves of a tree you’d see a mouth, and so on, until you’d see an entire man’s face smiling out at you from the picnic scene. Once you saw the man, that picnic scene was never the same again. For you had found the hidden man. You yourself had seen the smiling face. It’s the same way in our own lives. We Christians know by faith that there is a man hidden away in every scene of daily life. And that man’s name is Jesus. Once we find him, up close and personal, no scene in our lives is ever the same. That is part of the message of today’s gospel.

– Mark Link in ‘Sunday Homilies’

Film -Shoes of the Fisherman
When the Italian pope dies in the latter part of the twentieth century, the Cardinals debate who will succeed him. Some want a conservative pope while others feel that modern times call for a different approach so that the Church can speak to the real needs of the people. The conclave elects a Slavic cardinal who was imprisoned for twenty years by the communists. He becomes Pope Kiril I. He feels constricted by Vatican protocol, so he ventures one night to meet the real people of Rome. He also relates with theologians in difficulties with pastoral kindness and understanding. At his papal coronation, he gives away his tiara. He tries to negotiate an accord between China and Russia that are at war and he says he is ready to sell the treasures of the Vatican to alleviate starvation in China. When Morris West’s novel Shoes of the Fisherman first appeared in 1963, it was regarded as prophetic. When John Paul I died in 1978 after barely a month in office, the Slavic Pope Karol Wojtyla, was elected. John Paul II is considered to have been one of the chief influences in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Morris West was even more prophetic than people realized. The Shoes of the Fisherman takes past perceptions of the papacy and papal authority and looks at them in new ways. Like Pope Kiril in the film, Pope John Paul travelled outside Rome and tried to enter into dialogue with everyone. He exercised spiritual authority and tried to show that the role of the papacy was for service, especially in the political and economic arenas. The film shows the end of one era and the beginning of a new one. The Shoes of the Fisherman continues to challenge audiences to understand the papacy more deeply. The Shoes of the Fisherman was almost a blueprint for the papacy of John Paul II. The film expresses a different yet converging definition of what ‘Church’ means and what authority and service entails.

Peter Malone in ‘Lights Camera….Faith!’

While respecting legitimate authority, may we use authority given us to serve rather than dominate!

Fr. Jude Botelho
director@niscort.com

P.S. :The stories, incidents and anecdotes used in the reflections have been collected over the years from books as well as from sources over the net and from e-mails received. Every effort is made to acknowledge authors whenever possible. If you send in stories or illustrations I would be grateful if you could quote the source as well so that they can be acknowledged if used in these reflections. I would be happy if you could link this website to your own parish/diocesan/institutional website. If you wish to receive these reflections by e-mail, or send them to a friend, do send in the e-mail address to <jude@netforlife.plus.com>

Other Sunday Homily Websites

www.opsouth.org

www.meynen.homily-service.net

Daily Reflections

Creighton Daily Reflections

Immaculate Heart Retreat Center

Gospel Commentary from Ireland

Daily Scripture Readings

www.usccb.org/nab/today.htm

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