<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Commentary by Fr Donagh O\u2019Shea OP,\u00a0www.goodnews.ie:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When Jesus asked the disciples who the people believed he was, they gave him a list of dead men: \u201cSome say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.\u201d All dead. Peter alone mentioned life: \u201cYou are the Christ, the Son of the living<\/em> God.\u201d Theodore of Mopsuestia commented: \u201cHaving said that Peter\u2019s confession is a rock, Jesus stated, \u2018Upon this rock I will build my Church.\u2019 This means he will build his Church upon this same confession and faith.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the \u201ckey to the Kingdom of heaven.\u201d In ancient times a key was a hefty piece of equipment: in Isaiah 22:22 there is reference to placing a key on a man\u2019s shoulder<\/em>. But keys are now tiny things. The key to the Kingdom is a small thing. It is to see Jesus as \u201cthe Christ, the Son of the living<\/em> God.\u201d He himself said to the Sadducees on one occasion: \u201c[God] is God not of the dead, but of the living\u201d (Lk 20:38). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus is alive, but there are many who have an interest in keeping him dead: then he is controllable, predictable, even saleable. But he is not dead. The key is to see that he is everywhere: he is looking out of the eyes of the stranger and the sinner and the outsider. But even this key can be turned into an instrument of exclusion and control. It is meant to be the opposite: it is for opening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n John Chrysostom (4th-5th century): \u201cHe did not ask \u2018Who do the scribes and Pharisees say that I am?\u2019 even though they had often come to talk with him. Rather, he asked, \u2018Who do people<\/em> say the Son of man is?\u2019 as if to inquire about common opinion. Even if the common opinion was far less true than it might have been, it was at least freer of malice than the opinion of the religious leaders, who were reeking of bad motives.\u201d The latter, and their successors throughout the ages, would like to see his tomb sealed, the heavy stone securely in place for all time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s not say \u2018they\u2019; let\u2019s say \u2018we\u2019.\u00a0The Gospel is always about us, not about them; Jesus spoke in the second person; he was not a social commentator or a journalist.\u00a0The heavy stone represents the past; we live too much under its weight; we interpret the present not as something new but as something old.\u00a0But there are moments when the stone moves aside, even if only a fraction of an inch, and we glimpse the living Christ, as Peter did.\u00a0In such moments, our faith is in living continuity with his.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read full commentary at http:\/\/goodnews.ie<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Commentary by Fr Donagh O\u2019Shea OP,\u00a0www.goodnews.ie: When Jesus asked the disciples who the people believed he was, they gave him a list of dead men: \u201cSome say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.\u201d All dead. Peter alone mentioned life: \u201cYou are the Christ, the Son of the living<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8397,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8399,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8396\/revisions\/8399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}