John Wester, my former bishop and now the archbishop of Santa Fe, New Mexico, has insisted that for the duration of the pandemic, his clergy keep their homilies to five minutes or less. His reason for this is to decrease the possibility for the novel coronavirus to spread. This accomplishes the purpose in two ways. First, less speaking reduces the risk. Second, less time gathered together also decreases the risk.
A good meter for counting time is word count. The pace of about 100 words per minute is pretty accurate. Even when preaching, I speak at a slightly faster clip. But my goal in this reflection is to keep it under 500 words. As another of my former bishops, the late George Niederauer, once quipped: "I've never had anyone complain that my homily was too short." Anyone who preaches can verify this by their own experience.
By my reckoning, the main takeaway from today's readings is that Jesus is Lord. A secondary point is that coming to the realization that Jesus is Lord is what it means to have faith. Third, faith is a gift from God, which is what I take these words the inspired author placed in Jesus's mouth to mean: "flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father" (Matt 16:17).
It should not be missed that what is revealed to Peter is that this flesh and blood person (i.e., Jesus) is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. It is not intuitively obvious to the casual observer that Jesus is Messiah and Lord. Not only is Jesus one in being (i.e., "consubstantial") with the Father ("God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God"), he is also one in being with us. The Lord is consubstantial with us through the Blessed Virgin, in whose womb he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit.
To experience Jesus as Lord is to experience God's lovingkindness, his hesed. To experience divine hesed is to be changed, to be marked, like Jacob was marked as a result of his wrestling match with the angel (see Gen 32:22-32).
God's hesed shines forth when Jesus hangs on the cross. The all-powerful God exercises divine power by becoming powerless. This is why flesh and blood cannot reveal to you that Jesus is Lord and Messiah. His blood-shedding is the revelation.
What does this mean for how you live your life? This is a good question for each of us to ponder this week in light of God's revelation in and through Christ Jesus. It is also something for the Church, like the Blessed Virgin Mary, to constantly reflect upon "in her heart" (Luke 2:19).
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