Posted in News

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30th August 2026


Gospel: Matthew 16, 21 – 27

Jesus began to make it clear to his disciples that he was destined to
go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and
chief priests and scribes, to be put to death and to be raised up on
the third day. Then taking him aside, Peter began to remonstrate with
him. Heaven preserves you Lord:’ he said, he said “This must not
happen to you’ but he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me Satan!
You are an obstacle in my path because the way you think is not God’s
way but man’s. Then Jesus said to his disciples: “If anyone wants to
be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross
and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it, but
anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it. What then will a
man gain if he wins the whole world and ruins his life? Or what has a
man to offer in exchange for his life?  “For the Son of Man is going
to come in the glory of his Father with his angels and when he does,
He will reward each one according to his behaviour.”

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Homily
My dear Sisters and Brothers, The Gospel passage given to us for our
meditation this weekend continues Jesus’ instructions to his disciples
about his role as the person sent by the Father to correct the
catastrophic mistake made by our first parents, Adam and Eve. Matthew
begins by showing us that there is no love in Satan. Just as he
tempted our first parents and destroyed the beauty and harmony which
God wanted for us humans and having failed when he attempted to coerce
Jesus in the desert, Satan now tries to use, the person nominated to
lead the church in the task of restoration, Peter who had recognized
and openly acknowledged that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah,
the One sent by God to establish his Kingdom on earth. Peter did not
however truly understand Jesus’ role.  He expected Jesus to defeat the
enemies of Israel and become King of a free and independent sovereign
nation. So, when Jesus tells his disciples that he ‘must go to
Jerusalem and suffer greatly at the hands of the elders and chief
priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised’
(Mt 16:21), Peter is shocked.  His very human and understandable
response is to try and persuade his Master, whom he truly loved and
respected from risking his life.  Peter’s words almost sound like a
prayer: ‘Heaven preserve you, Lord, this must not happen to you!’ (Mt
16:22).  Peter’s natural concern is for Jesus, his Master’s,
well-being.  Jesus’ reply however is not gentle ‘Get behind me, Satan!
You are an obstacle in my path, because the way you think is not God’s
way, but man’s’ (Mt:16:23).
In this age in which we are told so very often that we must not speak
harshly to children and even to adults, Jesus’ response to Peter may
seem to us excessively harsh.  I think however that this reply was
essentially a teaching moment. The Old Testament often depicts battles
between various kingdoms as fierce physical encounters. Peter would
have grown up hearing of these battles; Jesus defines these battles as
man’s way. God’s way is different. It is the way of love whose
ultimate and supreme expression is the cross. Jesus taught this to his
apostles and disciples in various ways. His instructions to his
disciples are very clear, “If anyone wants to be a follower of mine,
let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. For
anyone who wants to save his life will lose it, but anyone who loses
his life for my sake will find it. What then will a man gain if he
wins the whole world and ruins his life?”  Jesus in his instructions
to those who decide to join him in the task of recreating his Kingdom,
here on earth and rebuilding the harmony lost, must know very clearly
and live without ambiguity what he taught to Peter and the disciples
in this episode.
The great temptation for all of us is rarely something which appears
very dangerous. As we grow older, we know very clearly the things
which are dangerous for us, we know what we must avoid if we want to
be serious about getting to heaven. Unfortunately, we also know, as we
know with our parents, the little things which our parents may not
approve of, but which will not create for us too many problems. If
this attitude becomes a frequent occurrence, then they become habits
and bad habits grow into serious obstacles, and we may not even be
aware of how serious they have become. The example of Judas, who was
not a bad person when chosen by Jesus, is a lesson for us.
The following of Jesus is always a challenging enterprise, as
challenging for us today as it was for Peter and his companions. It
shakes us out of our tendency to settle for a comfortable and
conforming religion. The desire to follow Jesus faithfully unmasks our
evasions, our double standards, our desire for ‘cheap grace’ our
reluctance to involve ourselves in sacrifice. It involves, as St Paul
reminds us in our second reading, developing a new way of seeing life,
and changing our behavior accordingly.  The instruction of Paul is
clear: ‘Do not model yourselves on the behavior of the world around
you, but let your behavior change, modelled by your new mind’ (Rom
12:2). And what is the behavior of the world, a desire for worldly
riches, a habit of self-importance, the seeking of power.
Becoming disciples of Jesus means learning to think the way Jesus
thought and now as God thinks, rather than the way we usually think.
And that will be for us, as it was for Peter and his disciples, a
life-long process of ups and downs, successes and failures.  There may
be times when we will feel a bit like Jeremiah in our first reading
today.  Chosen by God to be his ‘prophet to the nations’ (Jer 1:5),
fidelity to his calling ‘made him a daily laughingstock, everybody’s
but’ and brought him ‘insult and derision, all day long’ (Jer 20:7-8).
Though tempted to stop being a spokesman for the Lord, he could not
give up because, as he states, ‘there seemed to be a fire burning in
my heart, imprisoned in my bones’ (Jer 20:9).  Jeremiah had been, as
he states, ‘seduced’ by God, and he had let himself ‘be seduced’ (cf.
Jer 20: 7).  In other words, he had fallen in love with God so that
nothing could stop him from doing God’s will, no matter where this
might lead him.  The example of Jeremiah prompts us to ask ourselves
the question:  Have we let ourselves be seduced by Christ so that we
persevere in following and serving him, regardless of the
consequences? How important therefore for us to know and want to
imitate those who have been seduced by God. St. Teresa of Calcutta,
The Uganda Martyrs, St. Oscar Romero of El Salvador, Damian of Molokai
and those lay persons often non-catholic who devoted themselves to
recreating a world of harmony.
                                                  As in all ages, the
lives of martyrs are never easy. The desire to silence martyrs is
always very strong and we tend to forget or are never taught that the
vocation of every baptized person is in fact martyrdom. Martyrdom my
dear friends is almost always understood as death because of adhesion
to the name or person of Christ. There is however, martyrdom which is
not physical death, but reputational and social death which comes
because of reputations destroyed, because of standing up for the
faith, because of the defense of the poor, because of standing up for
human dignity and because reputations are destroy when we take a stand
against those who perpetrate attacks against those who uphold the
teaching of the church. The sharp intervention of Peter: ‘Heaven
preserve you, Lord…this must not happen to you; shows how Christians
today want to receive crowns without crosses just as the first
disciples did. So be quiet and no one will destroy your reputation,
while the poor continue to be disrespected, their pain ignored and
their dignity trampled.  Faced with this reality, a world which
largely ignores the teaching of Jesus what must our program of life
be.  It must be based on the teaching of Jesus in the beatitudes.
It must begin with “”Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5)
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they
shall be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons and
daughters of God.” (Matthew 5:9)
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:10)
“Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all
kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” (Matthew 5:11)”
 All of the above leads us to the conclusion that true alignment with
God’s heart demands unlearning worldly cynicism and returning to the
open, unfiltered posture of a child, which Christ identified as the
gateway to the Kingdom of Heaven. To think as God thinks requires
rejecting human impulses toward fear, vengeance, greed, and
institutional control—a failure illustrated by Peter’s rebuke from
Jesus (“Get behind me Satan”)

Prayer
All powerful and ever-loving God, you call us today as you called
Peter and the first disciples to be as St. Paul reminds us, your
ambassadors here on earth. This demands of us that we know you, and
that we know what Your Kingdom of Justice, Peace and love demands. As
ambassadors, we proclaim the truth of your Kingdom, and we proclaim it
by our very lives. Be with us Father and help us to avoid anything
which will give the wrong message. Help us to so live that true
harmony will once again blossom in our world, that the disciples of
Satan will be vanquished and the prophecies of the Book of Revelation
will be fulfilled.  We ask this through the intercession of Mary, our
Mother and Queen, and Jesus your Son and our brother. Amen