Homily for Friday of the 25th Week in Ordinary Time

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/092807.shtml

Who do you say that I am? How blessed do I feel as a priest to be called by Christ to contemplate this question everyday, and to be able to share my answer with others. In the context of today’s reading, Peter and the apostles are instructed not to tell anyone Christ’s identity until their understanding is deepened by the paschal events in Jerusalem, but afterwards, proclaiming their answer would become the very mission of the Church.

What a treasure we have, my friends, as our current pope, Benedict XVI, answers this question of who Jesus is for him, personally, through his new book Jesus of Nazareth. In reading the book, I get a sense that Benedict has contemplated this question – Who do you say that I am – everyday of his life, and in reading the book I am eating the fruit of his lifelong contemplation. What a gift!

Probably even moreso, my vocation to the priesthood was inspired by the centrality of this question in the life of the late Pope John Paul II. In his deep understanding of the mystery of the human person, John Paul understood that it is our answer to this question from Jesus that will determine definitively how we understand God, truth, the world, and how we should live. There have been some great religious figures in the history of the world, but none of them point to themselves like Jesus does. Jacob Neusner in his book A Rabbi Talks with Jesus is eventually turned away from Christianity because Jesus himself the person is the only new necessary thing within Christianity. Jesus forces us to make a decision everyday if we would be his disciple. Jesus does not ask us – what do you think about what I say? He says – who do you say that I am? Either He is the fullness of God’s revelation, and so everything changes based on our relationship to His person, or He is not. We must decide.