21st SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (A)

And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.

Mt 16:13-20

Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church...."

Our faith rests on the faith that has come down to us from the apostles. That faith is secure and certain (rock).

Apostolicity is one of the signs of the true Church. We trace our origin to Jesus and his apostles. It is worth noting that the books were accepted into the New Testament because of the apostolic authority behind those books.

I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

Peter has authority in the Church. This authority comes from above, not from below. That is, the origin is from God, not from the church members. He is not like a President of a country whose mandate comes from the citizens who elected him.

The keys are seen in the Vatican flag and in most sculptures and paintings portraying Peter .

Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

The people thought that the Messiah was a political Messiah who, like David and Solomon, will restore the glory of the Kingdom of Israel and drive out the time the Romans who were ruling over Palestine. But Jesus was not this kind of Messiah and so he did not want his mission to be confused with what the common people thought.

“Who do people say that the Son of Man is? But who do you say that I am?”

The conclusion of the story of the Woman at the Well in the gospel of John is worth recalling. "We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world."

We know many things about God and about Jesus. These were taught to us or we´ve read about them. But there comes a time when Jesus confronts us with this personal question: "Who do you say that I am?"

He doesn´t expect us to look for the answers from books we´ve read or sermon´s we´ve heard. But from our experience. "What can you say about me from experience?"

Spiritual writers say that sometimes God makes himself known to a person in a direct way, through a special spiritual experience. This is probably the way St. Paul got to know Jesus Christ.

More often than not we get to know God by means of life experiences. (A word of caution, though. Negative life experiences do have a way of negatively affecting our way of seeing God.) St. John Bosco as a child learned from his mother´s lips that God was good. But he also learned it in the midst of life´s adversities. There was a time that they had to go through a terrible famine. People died eating grass in the fields. But they survived that famine. Mama Margaret (his mother) would encourage the family to have faith in God (by then she was a widow).

Books are good. Homilies and conferences are good. But there´s nothing better than getting to know God through one´s life.