June 29, 2025
Acts of the Apostles 12: 1-11 + Psalm 34 + Second Timothy 4: 6-8, 17-18 + Matthew 16: 13-23
We are hardly back into Ordinary Time with its green vestments when this date, June 29, falls on a Sunday calling us to remember and celebrate to the two pillars on which our faith was built: Peter who is always associated with Jerusalem and its community and Paul with his Gentile converts. They represent for us the universality of our Church, and we ought not miss that this red replaces the green of Ordinary Time reminding us of the price that the commitment of these two asked of them.
As a church we come from every generation, race, culture, and social class. We share no common culture, but we do share a common faith that is rooted in the identity of Jesus Christ. All of us profess him to our Savior, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. It is that identity we proclaim with the Gospel today.
Jesus asks the disciples what people are saying about him. He wants to know how his words and actions are being understood by the people. The answers given to his questions are telling. Some believe that he is John the Baptist; others that he is Elijah; still other that he is one of the other prophets. These people have already died; the people seem to believe that Jesus is a prophet come back from the dead, and that’s all.
Then Peter speaks up proclaiming that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one of God adding that title, “Son of the Living God.” With that, Peter does more than just affirm the identity of Jesus Christ. He settles his own identity as well, and Jesus identifies Peter as the rock. That exchange is not just historical, something that happened a long time ago. When any of us proclaims our faith and identify Jesus Christ as our Lord and our Savior, our identity is revealed as well.
The issue raised today with this Gospel is then about identity; not just the identity of Jesus or the identity of Peter. There is a question here we ought to ask ourselves every day. “What are people saying about us? What can they assume from our words and deeds?”
Jesus warns the disciples that those identified as his own, will pay a price for that, and it’s not just Peter, Paul and their companions who will suffer when what they say and do identifies them with Jesus Christ. It’s about suffering that can be subtle and sometimes violent. If we have never suffered anything for our faith, it may well be because no one would guess who we are.
Those witnesses we call martyrs are still around us today in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. They have names like Stanley Rother, Archbishop Romero, Jean Donovon, a lay woman murdered in
El Salvador, and three Sisters killed with her. Yet it is not always these dramatic executions; more often, especially among us, it is the subtle dismissal or ridicule of our beliefs, of things we hold sacred and believe to be true. It is sometimes the bullying and mocking those of real faith experience that confirms that they are truly filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
So, we might wonder: if we have never experienced any challenge or have never suffered at all for our faith, perhaps our identity is not so clear and obvious, and might want to do something about that.