This may be too Catholic for you.

[Music] thank you so a couple of very important things happening in the gospel today one is the question who do people say that the son of man who do people others say that Jesus is and who do you say that he is and then Peter answers you are the Christ the Christ some people think Christ is Jesus's last name Jesus Christ right Christ is not Jesus's last name Christ is a title it's the Messiah it's an office it literally means the anointed one and there were many anointed ones frankly you're all anointed anybody here that's been baptized and confirmed has been anointed sometimes we call baptism uh chrismation or being christened you've heard that right Christ and Messiah two were same word different languages so Jesus Christ the anointed one so who Peter says you are the Christ the the one that we have been waiting for to be anointed the son of the Living God and so who Jesus is is an incredibly important question I would say perhaps the most important question in history in a sense because Jesus we would say we would say that Jesus is God from God light from light true God from true God and so the question is who is Jesus who is God and so this is happening in the gospel today but something else is happening in the gospel as well something very important so let me ask you this question imagine me standing right in front of you and saying to you who is Jesus who do you say that he is is he manned is he God is he both God and man I remember in high school might have been in college there was a guy that I knew who was not religious in fact he was kind of a snarky sort of fella and he had a t-shirt on and had a picture of Jesus on it and uh and I said what's up with your shirt and he said oh it's just some dude some dude who is Jesus is he Lord master friend savior King God who do you say that he is and it's easy to profess with our lips but not with our lives if he is Lord and Master and savior and King and God then we have to listen to what he says listen to and obey who do the Muslims say that Jesus is they say he is a prophet that he resurrected from the dead that he was born of a virgin those are things that they say but he's not God the Hindus Jesus could be one of many gods the Buddhists would say Jesus was an enlightened one even Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses using the same Bible that the Protestants who couldn't say the Creed that we're going to stand up in a few minutes from now and we're going to say the Creed and we're going to profess who Jesus is and I alluded to this a moment ago God from God light from light true God from true God begotten not make consubstantial with the father through him through Jesus all things were made we believe that he is God from God and light from light and enter into the mystery of of the trinity I remember a few years ago a good friend of mine Catholic priest John hurricane said he was approached by a guy who had some questions about Catholicism and he just knew they were going to be about the pope about confession about Mary about purgatory but they weren't they were about who Jesus is and he did his specs to explain who Jesus is as our understanding and the guy with like I just don't get that I don't believe that because we say that Jesus is God and man now that's not tremendously clear in the gospel today when Peter says when Peter says you are the Christ they were not anticipating the Christ being God incarnate the Son of God they weren't out anticipating that being an ontological ontological that is being so who Jesus is is a question that is kind of left open a little bit has to be developed further and it will be developed further in the centuries following now today the sermon or the homily today is going to be very very Catholic okay I'm going to warn you for that right now okay as you should expect it to be there's a one of my one of my theological Heroes a guy named Dr John bergsma was talking about having an Insight when he was listening to Children sing and the children were seeing it singing Jesus loved me this I know for the Bible tells me so right Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so and he thought those children can't even read how would the Bible tell them so well somebody else told them so somebody told them who Jesus was who told you who Jesus is or did you just read it for yourself and figure it all out now we're getting closer to kind of with a point that I want to make in the homily today let's put on the mind of Christ let's put on the mind of the church and I'll tell you this also our Protestant brothers and sisters they're very good we have a lot to learn from them in regard to some basic biblical literacy but at the same time the church challenges us to read the sacred scripture through the lens of the tradition through the lens of the unity of the entire Bible and through the authority of the church so let's hear part of today's Gospel again so Jesus asks who do you say that I am Simon steps up and says you are the Christ the son of the Living God Jesus says blessed are you Simon son of Jonah for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my heavenly father so flesh and blood his own flesh and blood Jesus of Peter's own brain and and synapses and thinking did not reveal it to him nor did anybody else but God the heavenly father inspired Peter with a prophetic knowledge of who Jesus is this was a gift given from God to Peter to know a supernatural gift so Jesus says blessed are you Simon for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my heavenly father this profession of faith and then Jesus the Christ changes Simon's name to Peter a word that means rock also sometimes in the scripture it's cephas which is the Aramaic word for rock and this gets a little bit complicated but it's very likely that Peter and Jesus were talking to each other in Aramaic not in Greek but the the language of the Gospel is Greek so Peter and cephas the same word different languages but they both mean Rock so Jesus says flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my heavenly father I'm changing your name to rock and on this Foundation your faith the gift of that I am giving you I'm going to build my church and that's pretty amazing but it's not as amazing as the next line because then Jesus says to Peter I will give you the keys and the keys are a symbol of authority and what did he give him the keys to something significant or something insignificant you know what he gave him the keys too does you have it in your mind I'll give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven that's a pretty big deal isn't it and then he doesn't leave it at that I'll give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven and then he says what you bind on Earth and to bind something to means to make it hold fast to fix it in place what you bind on Earth Jesus says to Peter I will give you the key the symbol of authority and I say to you what you bind on Earth is bound in heaven what you lose what you release what you release on Earth will be least released in heaven this is an incredible dialogue and this dialogue and this profession of faith and this giving of the keys and this authority to bind and loose all of these things kind of are the foundation of the church's understanding of the teaching Authority that I was entrusted to Peter and the apostles that wasn't just something that existed 2 000 years ago and went away but this is a teaching office that was established and so we have this gift the successor of Peter the pope has the ability to teach in a manner that we can be absolutely certain is correct that it is bound on Earth and that it is bound in heaven this belief the belief that the pope can teach with certainty sometimes called the dogma of infallibility you know I don't want to get too deep into infallibility but I do want to say this that sometimes people think the pope being infallible means he can do nothing wrong that's not true in fact if you if you read the Bible carefully this is happening in chapter 16 again where Peter is given the Keys of the Kingdom he says what you bind on Earth is bound in heaven and then almost immediately thereafter and I'm going to quote a little bit from Fulton Sheen here the father illuminated Peter's mind to confess who Jesus is but when Jesus announced his passion Peter called him aside to try to correct him and here is the Paradox that proved to be a stumbling Stone the gift and the Scandal infallibility and sinfulness divinely inspired key Bearer to the key gate of the Kingdom of Heaven lets himself be stigmatized as Satan because Peter says to Jesus no that can't be and Jesus says Get Behind Me Satan and the words are still hanging in the air that hears your keys and and so what do we do with this paradox we struggle with it a little bit so but we understand and you have to understand this that Jesus giving Peter the keys does not mean the pope can do no wrong rather it means that in Christianity there is a final decision-making Authority established by Christ himself set forth in a reasonable concrete teachable way and ultimately decisions about issues can be made with certainty and passed on and these decisions correctly interpret the heritage of Christ so the keys have been given what you bind on Earth shall be bound in heaven what you loose on Earth shall be loosed in heaven and there are the church has if you will rules about when dogmas are defined and teachings are made certain I had a teacher in seminary named Dr Liberto he taught Systematic Theology he was raised as a Catholic but he drifted away and became faithless and then he kind of rediscovered Jesus and then he rediscovered Catholicism and one of the things that Drew him to Catholicism was Authority Authority the question came into his mind about the Bible itself how do we Define which books are in the Bible how do we know it did not fall out of the sky bound up when golden gilded pages it had to be defined by an authority what did Jesus mean when he said you must eat my body and drink my blood do the scriptures Define God to be a trinity what does it mean to be baptized in the Holy Spirit if you don't speak in tongues are you really a Christian I know that's not a big question around here but it's a big question at other places how is one saved if after you're saved can you be unsaved if a saved Christian backslides into serious sin does that mean he was never really saved in the first place all of these questions come back to the Keys the devil has a plan as I have said to divide and conquer the divisions in Christianity are a great wound to its mission the establishment of the office another little story true story happened to me a few weeks ago really a young man raised into Protestant household his mother and his father had different Faith backgrounds but he was raised in a very faithful household he was taught the Bible by his father one on one going through sacred scripture he was a young man of great faith a young man who wanted to give his life to service of the Church of service of building the kingdom of God and then the church that he was going to started to fracture so he started going to his other parents church and guess what happened to that church it started to fracture and a man who had no idea that he would ever become Catholic started feeling himself drawn to Catholicism now when I was interviewing him because he was thinking about he's he's actually making application to go to the Seminary and maybe become a priest and I said what Drew you to the Catholic Church he had one word answer what do you think the word was Authority keys keys you know there's a saying the corruption of the best is the worst the corruption of the greatest things is the worst thing and when the church is corrupt it's it's horrible and when the church is divided it's horrible and we know that the church is attacked from inside and out and I said to this young man I said don't be naive don't be naive about the Catholic Church you know there are forces attacking and undermining inside and out I said don't run away from something but you have to be drawn to something beautiful and good and whole and so today the scripture asks the question who is Jesus

Channel: Our Lady of the Gulf Catholic Church

Views: 81,862

Keywords: Abortion, Faith, Fr. Mike, Fr. Mike O'Connor, Fr. O'Connor, Gender Affirmaton, Gendor Disphoria

Id: szB47Fz1lls

Length: 17min 26sec (1046 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 27 2023