HOMILY WEEK 18 04 – Year I
Faith Like a Rock – Key to the Kingdom:
Memorial of Blessed Frédéric Janssoone
(Num 20:1-13; Ps 95; Mt 16;13-23)
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Powerful archetypal readings today invite us to deeper faith in Jesus that will unlock the key to the kingdom of God. The delicate yet deliberate connection between the reading from Numbers and the Gospel offers some deep lessons about the difference faith and trust in Jesus can make in our lives.
In that first reading, the Israelites struggle with weak faith – complaining, thirsting for water, arguing with Moses and Aaron. Moses, their leader, acts on faith, yet falls short in faith by striking the rock twice in bringing forth water in the desert. The result is that God tells him he won’t take the people into the promised land because he did not trust God completely.
In the gospel, Jesus is in Caesarea Philippi, a crossroads at that time where culture, commerce and cult in the form of many pagan religions met and inter-acted. In that setting, Jesus asks the key question about his identity, and after a variety of responses, Peter professes a wonderful, inspired faith in Jesus as “the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God.”
Delighted with this statement, Jesus responds by proclaiming Peter would be the rock on which Jesus would build his church, from which living water would flow out to the world. On top of that, Jesus would give Peter the “keys of the kingdom of heaven” with the power to bind and loose.
Then a paradox – Jesus mysteriously announces what in the gospel of Mark is called the “Messianic secret” – they are not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. After that stern admonishment, Jesus predicts his passion, telling his disciples “that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the religious leaders, be killed and on the third day be raised.”
Here is where Peter, like Moses, falls short in faith – not understanding how Jesus could be both the Messiah and suffer, and protesting against it. Peter is not alone in this perception. Islam also has no concept of a “suffering God” – for them, that is blasphemy. A suffering Messiah is unique to Christianity. The result of this objection by Peter is some harsh language from Jesus, seemingly calling Peter Satan. Some would say Jesus was looking beyond Peter to Satan himself, and telling him to get behind him. Certainly, he was speaking from a worldly perspective of choosing an easier, softer way.
What was happening is that Peter went from powerful faith to suddenly representing a problem at that time, which is also a very modern problem today – our inability to understand the purpose and meaning of suffering, and the concomitant almost obsessive effort to avoid it at all costs. The result is a profound lack of respect for life at both ends of the spectrum – leading to especially physician assisted suicide for the elderly, because we cannot have them suffering. And in between there is an epidemic of opioid addiction, because people no longer know what to do with their pain – it has no meaning for them. As one psychologist in Ottawa put it “We used to think the enemy was death – now we know it is suffering.”
There are some deep lessons in these two readings for us centered on faith. A first is the call to not only understand the role suffering is meant to play in our lives, but to also be ready to be radical disciples who can accept suffering without bitterness or resentment. We are to be like Jesus who was led to his crucifixion like a lamb being led to slaughter. There was only compassion and forgiveness in him – caring for others to the end, and forgiving those who were crucifying him.
This is actually the key to the kingdom – to understand the brokenness of Jesus on the cross, the power of powerlessness, the true nature of love that seeks only to forgive rather than exact revenge, to accept suffering as Jesus did, without bitterness or resentment.
A second lesson flows from the first. Jesus gives to Peter, and to the Church, the power to forgive, the power to make heaven happen here on earth. Whatever we forgive here, is forgiven in heaven, and concomitantly, what we refuse to forgive here, is held back in heaven. We are given the power to help build up the kingdom of heaven on earth, and that key to the kingdom is given to all of us.
A third lesson is the nature of the Church. Pope Francis once stated it is not a good idea to try to have a personal relationship with Jesus that is not connected to a community of faith. The Church is the body of Christ, and we cannot separate the head from the body. In that sense, it is actually impossible to be an isolated, individual Christian – that is to be a non-entity! Here is a very mature reflection by Cynthia in Katherine Dowling Singh’s book The Grace of Living about the relationship between spirituality and religion that some try to separate:
“I think it is ultimately very difficult to be spiritual but not religious, because the deeper waters of transformation all flow through the deep lineages of the specific traditions. It’s very hard to go through that ego boundary, to really get through it, without actually bowing the knee and the heart to a lineage and a teaching and a teacher. That brings the heart dimension in, in a powerful and traditional way.” (p. 193)
A final lesson from these readings is that faith gives us the power to resist the temptation to become overly-attached to especially possessions and pleasure, prestige and fame, power and control. Those are the temptations that beset us every day and all the time. Faith in Jesus offers us a security in God’s love for us that makes it easier for us to say “no” to those temptations when they batter us with their illusionary attractiveness.
Blessed Frédéric Janssoone
Today, the church honors Blessed Frédéric Janssoone. In 1876, he was sent to the Holy Land, where he reinstated the Stations of the Cross through the streets of Jerusalem, built a church in Bethlehem and negotiated an accord among the Roman, Greek and Armenian Christians concerning the use and maintenance of the sanctuaries of Bethlehem and of the Holy Sepulchre. He moved to Canada permanently in 1888 and set about helping organizers develop the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Rosary (Notre-Dame-du-Cap) at Cap-de-la-Madeleine near Trois-Rivières. Frédéric died in Montreal on August 4, 1916. Buried in the crypt of the Franciscan chapel at Trois-Rivières, he was beatified in 1988 by Pope John Paul II.
The Eucharist is a profound act of faith and an experience of God’s unconditional love as forgiveness and healing. May our celebration deepen our trust in Jesus as Messiah and Son of God. May it also empower us to build up the kingdom of heaven here on earth by forgiving those who hurt us and accepting suffering in our lives as did Jesus, and Blessed Frédéric Janssoone.
