St. Peter, Matthew's symbol of the Church, struggled to accept Jesus for who he was. Last Sunday, we saw him boldly proclaim Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of God. This Sunday's Gospel records an incident that occurred within minutes of Peter's confession of faith; Peter's misunderstanding of Jesus. One minute Jesus calls him the 'Rock' on which he will build his Church, and the next he wants this rock out of the way: Peter is a stumbling block, a veritable 'Satan.' There would be further struggles for Peter and testing of his faith.
Since Peter represents us all, we should not be dismayed at our own struggles and testing of faith. I grew up in a very Catholic Ireland. The air we breathed was Catholic. Nobody questioned it. Born into it, we took the faith for granted. Today, we call it 'cultural Catholicism' to distinguish it from Catholicism of 'personal choice.' Today, the air we breathe is agnostic / atheistic, and we struggle to have a vital sense of God within one of the most powerful narcotics our planet has ever seen: secularism. It pervades our consciousness.
Adults who come seeking baptism today must make a clear choice for Christ - not just to show up in church on Sunday, but in their lifestyles and everyday values they might want to choose to be different from the amoral worldliness of today's society. Given the large drop-out numbers of those who become Catholic through the RCIA, it would not hurt parishes to have immediate follow-up educational opportunities for them for at least another year so their faith might find understanding. I know parents who go out of their way to seek out families where their kids can hang without being in a moral diaspora.
Moral loneliness is the experience and struggle of many Catholics today. I met a young woman across the Bay recently who is looking for a parish with a meaningful sense of community, a mature scripture-based spirituality and a commitment to justice and the poor. Unfortunately she has to drive forty-five minutes from where she lives to find a spiritual home that makes sense to her. Feeling so alone, she fears becoming apathetic about Christ and the Church.
How to separate church from politics in our hearts? 'I am for Obama, or I am for Michelle, or Newt, or Sarah.....' I notice, not without some inner alarm, the numbers of Catholics who see their faith in terms of Republican or Democrat ideology. It's a struggle to live, and not be morally wounded, in a society that's deeply divided and polarized by politics. The struggle here is to get to the moral roots of what the politicians are proposing and match them with our conscience and faith. It's not at all easy to genuinely know and follow our hearts beyond what the loud voices to the right and the left tell us we should do. The aim is to be women and men of sincerity and compassion.
Peter's problem in this Sunday's Gospel is that he couldn't see that accepting Jesus would mean accepting death and the cross. Death on a cross was where the momentum of Jesus' ministry - his values and worldview - would lead him. He was hoping for a hot political messiah, not one who would suffer and then lose the battle. To be or not to be a stumbling block was Peter's dilemma. Peter knew intuitively that a similar fate awaited him and all who would henceforth follow Christ. 'Whoever wishes to come after me.... Whoever wishes to save his life.... What profit is there in gaining the whole world.... ‘Christ’s invitation is for not less than everything. Peter eventually gave everything.
Watching the media feeds from the recent World Youth Day (week, really!), where a million and a half young Catholics gathered in Madrid around B16 (our fluffy headed Vatican's First Gentleman!) for Eucharist, prayer, adoration and song, I got the impression that many young people want something, an ideal, to focus their lives around. I was left wondering what to make of it all. It's easy to paint today's young adults with the same brush: hipsters, who've had metrosexual makeovers, complete with skinny jeans and $90 haircuts, and against any institution, corporation or religion that would tell them how to live their lives.
I think the spirit Peter was alive last week in that tsunami of young adults that crowded into Madrid. They looked as if they were ready to give their all for Christ. They looked as if they were beyond 'cool' and looking for 'real.' If these twenty-somethings are interested in Christianity in any kind of serious way, it's not because it's trendy or popular. It's because Jesus Christ himself is appealing, and what he says rings true to their hearts. It's because the world we inhabit is phony, ephemeral, narcissistic, image-obsessed and sex-drenched. And they want an alternative, not more of the same. The alternative seems to be the poor Christ carrying his cross.
PASTOR EMERITUS
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