August 30, 2026, Saint William & Saint Peter Churches in Naples, FL

Jeremiah 20: 7-9 + Psalm 63 + Romans 12: 1-2 + Matthew 16: 21-27

The first part of this Gospel has us listening to what I think was a really a shouting match between Peter and Jesus. This is a pivotal moment for both of them. For Jesus, it’s time to move on and be the Messiah he now knows he must be to follow the Father’s will. For Peter, it is just opposite. Clinging to a mistaken expectation of what the Messiah will be like, he sounds like the voice of Satan who tempted Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus recognizes this for what it is, and he shuts Peter down as we hear the first prediction of the Passion. There will be two more.

The conflict between Peter and Jesus is really about the Will of God, and in the argument between the two of them, the meaning of “life” gets clarified. When Jesus says he “must” go to Jerusalem, he makes it his decision. It is not a fate that just happens because of his enemies. It is something that Jesus accepts to do. He has made God’s will his own. He sees that going to Jerusalem, suffering, and dying is good to do because of the resurrection. He tries to help his disciples perceive that going to Jerusalem, suffering and dying, despite its appearances is something they will want to pursue together with Jesus joining him in the path to the cross. Knowing that words are not enough, Jesus, as Matthew puts it, began to show it to his disciples.

As Jesus continues to persuade these reluctant disciples who are resisting God’s will, Jesus speaks of saving one’s life and losing it. Being unwilling to deny oneself and take up one’s cross reveals a misunderstanding of “life.” This passage is not about a cross in spite of how many people focus on that word over and over again. It is not an invitation to be miserable and smile. It is an invitation to think about the meaning of life. Jesus is not speaking of a life that involves accumulating goods and stuff for sustaining one’s life. That is thinking of life in the human realm, or from a human point of view. This is not the life Jesus leads us to. He speaks of a bigger, fuller, unending life.

Understanding that the Christ must suffer and die is the same as understanding that one’s life is not limited to what w e know on this earth. It must include life after death. This is why Christ can accept without anxiety the way of the cross. He trusts the Father who will raise him up to share in the Father’s glory. For those disciples which includes all of us, having a view of life that is not limited to the human realm involves not being anxious about life because of our trust in God and our choice to follow Jesus in the way he accepts the Will of God.

Losing oneself really means finding one’s true self, discovering, believing, and embracing who we really are, loved children of a merciful, life-giving God. To deny oneself is not a call to some kind of asceticism that might be harmful to one’s mental, physical, or spiritual health. It is really a call to affirm one’s gifts and graces, to rejoice at and rest peacefully in a relationship with Jesus that makes his will our will.

Choosing to be doers of God’s Word and not just “hearers” frees us to deny ourselves in the service of compassion and life in the Body of Christ. The way of the cross is unpredictable and sometimes frightening. Peter and his friends came to know this in ways that they had not planned for and could not have predicted. In naming for the first time what it meant to live into and participate in the body of Christ, Peter and the others show us what it means to live into the mystery of the Incarnation and discipleship.

August 23, 2026, at Saint William and Saint Peter Churches in Naples, Florida

Isaiah 22: 19-23 + Psalm 138 + Romans 11: 33-36 + Matthew 16: 13-20

There is something about the times in which we live that make it more and more difficult to know who we are, what the Church is, and for that matter, who Jesus Christ is. That “something” is the growing threat of individualism that began back in the 60s if my guess is right. The idea that any of us have an identity or can know who we are without standing in a relationship to someone else just plain strange. Think of it this way: you can’t really say that you are a Catholic without a Parish or a Community with which you celebrate Mass. If you think you can, your identity rests upon an idea not on something real. Religion is not a concept. It is a relationship.

This matter of identity is what is stirring through these verses of Matthew’s Gospel. Notice how Jesus asks the question twice: “Who do people say that I am” followed by “Who do you say that I am.” What the people say and think is not helpful because what they say is based on what he does, not really who he is. When it comes to that second question, something is different now because of the relationships with Peter and the other disciples.

Many scholars think that Jesus may have been relying on his community of disciples to help him understand and accept his messianic identity. He needed those who knew him best to clear up what he knew might be coming. I have been preaching on this Gospel for almost 60 years, and until this year, I never noticed that in the twenty times Matthew uses the word “Messiah,” Jesus never refers to himself as Messiah until after Peter’s declaration here.

Matthew is sharing with us a pivotal occasion in the lives of both Jesus and Peter. Each of them shares his insights with the other, affirms the other’s identity, and prepares the other for the ministry that lies ahead. Unfortunately for us, what happens next, we will not read here because of the way our readings skip around in Matthew’s Gospel. But, right after this exchange with Peter, Jesus takes him and three others up a high mountain where his Transfiguration takes place after which, he heads to Jerusalem for the culmination of his ministry. Shortly thereafter, come Pentecost, Peter matures and learns to preach and teach. What is happening here is that Peter and Jesus help each other assume their rightful identities. Leaving us to wonder and ask about our own.

What Jesus discovers is that he is not what he does. He is not a wonderworker, healer, or even just another prophet. He is the Son of God. What Peter discovers is that he is not just a fisherman who tags along with someone who raises his hopes for fame and success, but that he is the one upon whom the coming of the Kingdom through the Church will now depend.

What Matthew leaves us to consider today is whether or not we are more than what we do raising the question of our own identity and where it comes from. If Jesus can ask the question: “Who do you say that I am” maybe we should ask that question as well. The truth of our identity does not come from our jobs or where we live. It comes from Baptism, a Sacramental moment when we are brought into a relationship within the Church and with Jesus Christ. It is a life-long struggle to confirm and affirm that identity by which and through which we are members of Christ’s Body, the Church. Yet, we work at it. We are here. We stay here because this is where we are at our best and most true selves.

August 16, 2026, at Saint Peter the Apostle & Saint William Churchs in Naples, FL

Isaiah 56: 1, 6-7 + Psalm 67 + Romans 11: 13-15, 29-32 + Matthew 15: 21-28

If anyone here has not responded impatiently to an interruption when trying concentrate on something important, I want to know who you are, and I will see to it that the process for your canonization begins now. An interruption, that is what is going on here on the surface. Jesus and the disciples are out in foreign territory fairly far from home. This region called Tyre and Sidon is not particularly friendly. It is not Jewish territory. On top of that, nowhere did women approach and speak to men, especially foreign men. This setting is about interruptions and a lot more. With this story, Matthew raises a lot of questions we might ponder.

This woman is not one of the family. So, does she do without help until the family is taken care of? Does Jesus really believe that his mission is only to the “House of Israel?” Why does Matthew tell us that Jesus was silent at first? Is he trying to decide what to do? He has already scolded the Pharisees for excluding people. Then, how did she know Jesus and know that he would help her? You may have even more questions all of which can distract us from what is happening and what Matthew would say to us.

What happens here is that a silent Jesus reflects on his mission and in the face of this need changes his mind. I like to imagine that this woman is really God the Father interrupting Jesus who at first had a narrow sense of his mission opening it wider making it totally inclusive. What happens here for us is a chance to see how God can interrupt our busy lives and speak through encounters with strangers and in situations outside our comfort zone. Disciples of Jesus learn and grow when they brush up against people whose lives, needs, dreams, and struggles are different from their own.

In our deeply polarized society, people of different political views, economic conditions, ethnic backgrounds or religious convictions are demonized and dismissed. Matthew speaks to us about this. In a society like this, it is easy to decide who should be excluded from the circle of God’s love or our own. Yet no one can limit the grace of God.

With all of this in mind, we can’t leave these verses without some recognition of this mother’s passionate love for her sick child. She risks scorn and probably more for speaking up and begging. She comes before us like anyone in great need. Rather than sending them away, we must be one with them. This woman and everyone in need, longs for and hopes for advocates who will do something and say something to help. Advocacy is part of a Disciples’ role. We do bear one another’s burdens, feel and share the pain of those who are in distress, and while we join our prayers to theirs so that the Son of David will see our faith, we also join our voices to theirs so that one voice becomes many with the hope that through grace and faith we may hear those words that began this new creation: “Let it be done.”

August 9, 2026

I am on vacation this weekend away from Naples but offer these thoughts for those following.

First Kings 19: 11-13 + Psalm 85 + Romans 9: 1-5 + Matthew 14: 22-33

Like Matthew, both John’s Gospel and Mark join this story of Jesus walking on water to the feeding of the multitude. For the early church to which Matthew is writing, a church mostly of Jewish converts, the memory of Israel’s experience of the sea, wilderness, and the manna would be very much alive in their hearing of this story. The part about Peter and the ending with that sudden and extraordinary proclamation of faith is Mattew’s addition to this traditional story.

Often the Gospels report Jesus withdrawing from the demands around him to pray. What we may not have noticed is that these times often correspond to the disciples getting themselves into trouble. Last week we heard of Jesus withdrawing as the news about John the Baptist reached him. But before he can withdraw, he feeds the multitude and then sends the disciples off on their own finally getting some time to himself. A crisis erupts, and the disciples are in trouble without Jesus. They are really a mess when Jesus is gone, and so are we and our Church.  

The part about Peter speaks to all of us, I believe. Walking on the water is his idea. He thinks he can do it on his own, and we see what happens when any of us try to do something without Jesus. He is between faith and fear. He walks and he sinks. He trusts and then doubts. Don’t we all find ourselves going back and forth between trust and fear, faith and doubt? Yet, Jesus invites us to come to him, but when do and it gets a little stormy or rough, we wonder if we did the right thing, and we cry out: “Lord, save me.”  Fear is the danger here, and fear is very real.

Focusing on Jesus may not necessarily do anything to calm the storm. No amount of faith may end difficult times. No trust may calm the fears of anyone who comes to realize how vulnerable and fragile life is. No amount of prayer is guaranteed to calm the storms that sometimes rage in every one of our lives and homes.

Nevertheless, what Jesus said then, he says today: “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Even in the face of fear, we might all risk taking one more step to Jesus Christ. Without him we have very little to offer this world, while with him there is little else we need.