Daily Reading

First Reading

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

Psalm

Psalm 144:1b and 2abc, 3-4

Blessed be the Lord, my rock,
    who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle;
my rock and my fortress,
    my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield, in whom I take refuge,
    who subdues the peoples under me.
O Lord, what are human beings that you regard them,
    or mortals that you think of them?
They are like a breath;
    their days are like a passing shadow.

Gospel Reading

Luke 9: 18-22

Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” They answered, “John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “The Messiah of God.”

He sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, saying, “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

Reflection

Friends, the Gospel for today is incomparably rich and mysterious. First, we notice that peculiar question, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” No other religious figure or founder would ask such a question. This is the primordial and peculiar question of the Christian faith. It has to do with Jesus and who he is. 

The first group that “responds” is the general public: “John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, ‘One of the ancient prophets has arisen.’” A range of opinions—and all of them wrong.

Then that devastating question: “But who do you say that I am?” You who are closest to me, you whom I have chosen. But the disciples don’t speak. Are they afraid? Perhaps. Are they ignorant? Probably. 

Finally, Simon Peter speaks: “The Christ of God.” You are the Messiah, the anointed, the long-awaited Savior; but more to it, you are the Son of God, not just a human hero. This is the mystical faith that stands at the heart of Christianity. This is the standing or falling point. To hold this Petrine faith is to be a Christian; to deny it is not to be a Christian.