“But Who do You Say that I Am ?”
Jesus asks the question of his disciples in this weekend’s Sunday Gospel that He asks of us. What is our perception of Jesus? How do we describe the working of God in our life? Do we desire to know and love Him more ? Most probably we have never thought of this question directed to us before. But this is the question we must all answer. The answers will be numerous and have great variety. But Peter responded from his heart with a sense of wonder and awe when he said “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” This answer predates the learned treatises of the Trinitarian God. This was said without the illustrations we have enjoyed in life either in book, film, news or further education. This was done without the libraries full of books that are intentioned to help us respond. This was a response of faith - a felt present tense sense of God.
I was fortunate to attend a retreat day sponsored by the Archdiocese for principals, and administrators and parish priests on August 10, 2011, in preparation of the opening of the 2011-2012 academic year. The theme of one of the guest speakers was “Do less; Live More!” suggesting that within our lives and particularly for school leadership positions, they would shortly be tugged in many directions from the many people and interests they serve. His message was essentially that we should seek to do what we can - which is not everything - as well as we can, and to honor and cultivate a sense of the “present moment.” How true this message is for us all ! We need to allow time for ourselves to enjoy the love of God and of each other in the present moment, to enable us to respond to Christ’s inquiry of each of our descriptions of God to us.
The retreat speaker noted that within our American society we have a tendency to walk right by our life within the present to a place we think we should be. He noted that we needed to “make sacramental” the present moment. Extrapolating his message and applying it to this weekend’s Gospel, I believe that it is within the paradigm of appreciating the present that we can most readily be aware of God. I believe that if we are always in a state of getting to know God better through endless and hurried activities so that we might answer this question with technical precision, we miss the mark. As Christ asks His disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” There is a suggestion that there is no right or wrong answer. He is speaking to how we feel about him within our hearts not just our heads. St Augustine said it best in his Confessions- “Our whole business therefore in this life is to restore to health the eyes of the heart whereby God may be seen.” From this perspective we can ready ourselves to respond to Jesus with our sense of who Jesus is to us.
What I believe is tragic is the answer- “I’ve never thought much about who You are to me.” This carries with it the inference that the task of getting to know God personally just was not that important or seemed so daunting that we did not try. The first alternative is a rejection of God’s love and the second is to choose to use all of our precious time on earth effectively avoiding appreciation of God. Either of these two answers is equivalent to rejection of God’s offer of friendship and love. Let us try and find God’s working within our everyday life and find how loved and gifted we all are! Let us know God well!
Fr. Mike
