Daily Reading
First Reading
Genesis 9:1-13
God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life.
Whoever sheds the blood of a human,
by a human shall that person’s blood be shed;
for in his own image
God made humankind.
And you, be fruitful and multiply, abound on the earth and multiply in it.”
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
Psalm
Psalm 102:16-18, 19-21, 29 and 22-23
For the Lord will build up Zion;
he will appear in his glory.
He will regard the prayer of the destitute,
and will not despise their prayer.
Let this be recorded for a generation to come,
so that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord:
that he looked down from his holy height,
from heaven the Lord looked at the earth,
to hear the groans of the prisoners,
to set free those who were doomed to die;
so that the name of the Lord may be declared in Zion,
and his praise in Jerusalem,
when peoples gather together,
and kingdoms, to worship the Lord.
He has broken my strength in midcourse;
he has shortened my days.
Gospel Reading
Mark 8:27-33
Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.
Reflection
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”
No other religious figure or founder would ask such a question. This is the primordial and peculiar question of the Christian faith. It has to do with him and who he is. And so the Church, for the first several centuries, fought intellectually over precisely this odd question.
The first group that “responds” is the general public, giving a range of opinion—and all of it wrong. And if we were to take a public opinion poll today, we would hear “teacher, prophet, guru, madman . . .”
Then that devastating question: “But who do you say that I am?” You who are closest to me, surely you have a clearer grasp than the common run of people. But the disciples don’t speak. Are they afraid? Perhaps. Are they ignorant? Probably.
Finally, Simon Peter speaks: “You are the Christ.” In Matthew’s version of the scene, Peter says, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” This is the mystical faith that stands at the heart of Christianity. To hold this Petrine faith is to be a Christian; to deny it is not to be a Christian.